THE  SLIM 
PRINCESS 

BY  GEORGE  ADE 


N 


^r 


rrxl: 


\ / 


TIE  SUM 


I  consented  to  deliver  a  message  for  him 


THE 

SLIM  PRINCESS 


Bg 
GEORGE  ADE 

Author  of    " 
Fables  in  Slang 
In  Pastures  New,  Pink  Marsh,  etc. 


With  Illustrations  by 

GEORGE  F.  KERR 


NEW  YORK 
A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  1906,  by  the 

Curtis  Publishing 

Company 

Copyright  1907 
.The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 

Copyright  1011 
/The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTBR  PAGE 

I   WOMAN  IN  MOROVENIA 1 

II    KALORA'S  AFFLICTION 5 

III  THE  CRUELTY  OF  LAW 12 

IV  THE  GARDEN  PARTY 18 

Y   HE  ARRIVES 38 

VI    HE  DEPARTS 60 

VII   THE  ONLY  KOLDO     . 68 

VIII    BY  MESSENGER     . 85 

IX  As  TO  WASHINGTON,  D.  C 99 

X   ON  THE  WING .  108 

XI   An  OUTING— A  REUNION 114 

XII   THE  GOVERNOR  CABLES 129 

XIII  THE  HOME-COMING      140 

XIV  HEROISM  REWARDED  147 


912767 


THE  SLIM  PRINCESS 


WOMAN    IN    MOROVENIA 

Morovenia  is  a  state  in:  which  J)0tli  the 
mosque  and  the  mQtor:ca^jaow.;jCCQtJr,in 
the  same  landscape.  It  started  out  to  be 
Turkish  and  later  decided  to  be  Euro- 
pean. 

The  Mohammedan  sanctuaries  with 
their  hideous  stencil  decorations  and 
bulbous  domes  are  jostled  by  many  new 
shops  with  blinking  fronts  and  German 
merchandise.  The  orthodox  turn  their 
faces  toward  Mecca  while  the  enlight- 
ened dream  of  a  journey  to  Paris.  Men 
of  title  lately  have  made  the  pleasing  dis- 
covery that  they  may  drink  champagne 
i 


and  still  be  good  Mussulmans.  The  red 
slipper  has  been  succeeded  by  the  tan 
gaiter.  The  voluminous  breeches  now 
acknowledge  the  superior  graces  of  inti- 
mate English  trousers.  Frock-coats  are 
more  conventional  than  beaded  jackets. 
The  fez  remains  as  a  part  of  the  insignia 
of  the  old  faith  and  hereditary  devotion 
to  the  Sick  Man. 

The  generation  of  males  which  has  been 
extricating  itself  from  the  shackles  of 
Orientalism  has  not  devoted  much  worry 
to  the  Condition  of  Woman. 

In  Morovenia  woman  is  still  unliber- 
ated.  She  does  not  dine  at  a  palm-gar- 
den or  hop  into  a  victoria  on  Thursday 
afternoon  to  go  to  the  meeting  of  a  club 
organized  to  propagate  cults.  If  she 
met  a  cult  face  to  face  she  would  not 
recognize  it. 

Nor  does  she  suspect,  as  she  sits  in  heir 
2 


prison  apartment,  peeping  out  through 
the  lattice  at  the  monotonous  drift  of 
the  street  life,  that  her  sisters  in  far- 
away Michigan  are  organizing  and  rais- 
ing missionary  funds  in  her  behalf. 

She  does  not  read  the  dressmaking 
periodicals.  She  never  heard  of  the 
Wednesday  matinee.  When  she  takes 
the  air  she  rides  in  a  carriage  that  has  a 
sheltering  hood,  and  she  is  veiled  up  to 
the  eyes,  and  she  must  never  lean  out  to 
wriggle  her  little  finger-tips  at  men  lol- 
ling in  front  of  the  cafes.  She  must  not 
see  the  men.  She  may  look  at  them,  hut 
she  must  not  see  them.  No  wonder  the 
sisters  in  Michigan  are  organizing  to  bat- 
ter down  the  walls  of  tradition,  and  bring 
to  her  the  more  recent  privileges  of  her 
sex! 

Two  years  ago,  when  this  story  had  its 
real  beginning,  the  social  status  of  wo- 
s 


man  in  Morovenia  was  not  greatly  differ- 
ent from  what  it  is  to-day,  or  what  it  was 
two  centuries  ago. 

Woman  had  two  important  duties  as- 
signed to  her.  One  was  to  hide  herself 
from  the  gaze  of  the  multitude,  and  the 
other  was  to  be  beautiful — that  is,  fat. 
A  woman  who  was  plump,  or  buxom,  or 
chubby  might  be  classed  as  passably  at- 
tractive, but  only  the  fat  women  were 
irresistible.  A  woman  weighing  two 
hundred  pounds  was  only  two-thirds  as 
beautiful  as  one  weighing  three  hundred. 
Those  grading  below  one  hundred  and 
fifty  were  verging  upon  the  impossible. 


II 

KALORA'S    AFFLICTION 

If  it  had  been  planned  to  make  this  an 
old-fashioned  discursive  novel,  say  of  the 
Victor  Hugo  variety,  the  second  chapter 
would  expend  itself  upon  a  philosophical 
discussion  of  Fat  and  a  sensational  show- 
ing of  how  and  why  the  presence  or 
absence  of  adipose  tissue,  at  certain  im- 
portant crises,  had  altered  the  destinies 
of  the  whole  race. 

The  subject  offers  vast  possibilities. 
It  involves  the  physical  attractiveness  of 
every  woman  in  History  &nd  permits  one 
to  speculate  wildly  as  to  what  might  have 
happened  if  Cleopatra  had  weighed  forty 
pounds  heavier,  if  Elizabeth  had  been  a 
gaunt  and  wiry  creature,  or  if  Joan  of 
5 


Iff  SIMM 

lllL-OLllVl 


Arc  had  been  so  bulky  that  she  could  not 
have  fastened  on  her  armor. 

The  soft  layers  which  enshroud  the 
hard  machinery  of  the  human  frame  seem 
to  arrive  in  a  merely  incidental  or  acci- 
dental sort  of  way.  Yet  once  they  have 
arrived  they  exert  a  mysterious  influence 
over  careers.  Because  of  a  mere  change 
in  contour,  many  a  queen  has  lost  her 
throne.  It  is  a  terrifying  thought  when 
one  remembers  that  fat  so  often  comes 
and  so  seldom  goes. 

It  has  been  explained  that  in  Moro- 
venia,  obesity  and  feminine  beauty  in- 
creased in  the  same  ratio.  The  woman 
reigning  in  the  hearts  of  men  was  the  one 
who  could  displace  the  most  atmosphere. 

Because  of  the  fashionableness  of  fat, 
Count  Selim  Malagaski,  Governor-Gen- 
eral of  Morovenia,  was  very  unhappy. 
He  had  two  daughters.  One  was  fat; 
6 


TtESL 


one  was  thin.  To  be  more  explicit,  one 
was  gloriously  fat  and  the  other  was  dis- 
tressingly thin. 

Jeneka  was  the  name  of  the  one  who 
had  been  blessed  abundantly.  Several  of 
the  younger  men  in  official  circles,  who 
had  seen  Jeneka  at  a  distance,  when  she 
waddled  to  her  carriage  or  turned  side- 
wise  to  enter  a  shop-door,  had  written 
verses  about  her  in  which  they  compared 
her  to  the  blushing  pomegranate,  the  ripe 
melon,  the  luscious  grape,  and  other  veg- 
etable luxuries  more  or  less  globular  in 
form. 

No  one  had  dedicated  any  verses  to 
Kalora.  Kalora  was  the  elder  of  the  two. 
She  had  come  to  the  alarming  age  of 
nineteen  and  no  one  had  started  in  bid- 
ding for  her. 

In  court  circles,  where  there  is  much 
time  for  idle  gossip,  the  most  intimate 
7 


mni  TI  s 
SUM 


secrets  of  an  important  household  are 
often  bandied  about  when  the  black  cof- 
fee is  being  served.  The  marriageable 
young  men  of  Morovenia  had  learned  of 
the  calamity  in  Count  Malagaski's  fam- 
ily. They  knew  that  Kalora  weighed  less 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds. 
She  was  tall,  lithe,  slender,  sinuous,  wil- 
lowy, hideous.  The  fact  that  poor  old 
Count  Malagaski  had  made  many  unsuc- 
cessful attempts  to  fatten  her  was  a  stock 
subject  for  jokes  of  an  unrefined  and 
Turkish  character. 

Whereas  Jeneka  would  recline  for 
hours  at  a  time  on  a  shaded  veranda, 
munching  sugary  confections  that  were 
loaded  with  nutritious  nuts,  Kalora 
showed  a  far-western  preference  for 
pickles  and  olives,  and  had  been  detected 
several  times  in  the  act  of  bribing  ser- 


vants  to  bring  this  contraband  food  into 
the  harem. 

Worse  still,  she  insisted  upon  taking 
exercise.  She  loved  to  play  romping 
games  within  the  high  walls  of  the  in- 
closure  where  she  and  the  other  female 
attaches  of  the  royal  household  were  kept 
penned  up.  Her  father  coaxed,  pleaded 
and  even  threatened,  but  she  refused  to 
lead  the  indolent  life  prescribed  by  cus- 
tom; she  scorned  the  sweet  and  heavy 
foods  which  would  enable  her  to  expand 
into  loveliness;  she  persistently  declined 
to  be  fat. 

Kalora's  education  was  being  directed 
by  a  superannuated  professor  named 
Popova.  He  was  so  antique  and  book- 
wormy  that  none  of  the  usual  objections 
urged  against  the  male  sex  seemed  to  hold 
good  in  his  case,  and  he  had  the  free  run 


9 


TIE  SLIM 


of  the  palace.  Count  Selim  Malagaski 
trusted  him  implicitly.  Popova  fawned 
upon  the  Governor-General,  and  seemed 
slavish  in  his  devotion.  Secretly  and 
stealthily  he  was  working  out  a  frightful 
vengeance  upon  his  patron.  Twenty 
years  before,  Count  Selim,  in  a  moment 
of  anger,  had  called  Popova  a  "Christian 
dog." 

In  Morovenia  it  is  flattery  to  call  a  man 
a  "liar."  It  is  just  the  same  as  saying 
to  him,  "You  belong  in  the  diplomatic 
corps."  It  is  no  disgrace  to  be  branded 
as  a  thief,  because  all  business  transac- 
tions are  saturated  with  treachery.  But 
to  call  another  a  "Christian  dog"  is  the 
thirty-third  degree  of  insult. 

Popova  writhed  in  spirit  when  he  was 
called  "Christian,"  but  he  covered  his 
wrath  and  remained  in  the  nobleman's 
service  and  waited  for  his  revenge.  And 

10 


«LIM 


now  he  was  sacrificing  the  innocent  Ka- 
lora  in  order  to  punish  the  father.  He 
said  to  himself:  "If  she  does  not  fatten, 
then  her  father's  heart  will  be  broken,  and 
he  will  suffer  even  as  I  have  suffered 
from  being  called  Christian." 

It  was  Popova  who,  by  guarded  meth- 
ods, encouraged  her  to  violent  exercise, 
whereby  she  became  as  hard  and  trim  as 
an  antelope.  He  continued  to  supply  her 
with  all  kinds  of  sour  and  biting  foods 
and  sharp  mineral  waters,  which  are  the 
sworn  enemies  of  any  sebaceous  condi- 
tion. And  now  that  she  was  nineteen* 
almost  at  the  further  boundary  of  the 
marrying  age,  and  slimmer  than  ever  be- 
fore, he  rejoiced  greatly,  for  he  had  ac- 
complished his  deep  and  malign  purpose, 
and  laid  a  heavy  burden  of  sorrow  upon 
Count  Selim  Malagaski. 


11 


Ill 

THE    CRUELTY    OF    LAW 

If  the  father  was  worried  by  the  pro- 
longed crisis,  the  younger  sister,  Jeneka, 
was  well-nigh  distracted,  for  she  could 
not  hope  to  marry  until  Kalora  had  been 
properly  mated  and  sent  away. 

In  Morovenia  there  is  a  very  strict  law 
intended  to  eliminate  the  spinster  from 
the  social  horizon.  It  is  a  law  born  of 
craft  and  inspired  by  foresight.  The 
daughters  of  a  household  must  be  married 
off  in  the  order  of  their  nativity.  The 
younger  sister  dare  not  contemplate  mat- 
rimony until  the  elder  sister  has  been  led 
to  the  altar.  It  is  impossible  for  a  young 
and  attractive  girl  to  make  a  desirable 
match  leaving  a  maiden  sister  marooned 
12 


*m  the  market.  She  must  cooperate  with 
her  parents  and  with  the  elder  sister  to 
clear  the  way. 

As  a  rule  this  law  encourages  earnest 
getting- together  in  every  household  and  re- 
sults in  a  clearing  up  of  the  entire  stock  of 
eligible  daughters.  But  think  of  the  un- 
happy lot  of  an  adorable  and  much-cov- 
eted maiden  who  finds  herself  wedged  in 
behind  something  unattractive  and  shelf- 
worn!  Jeneka  was  thus  pocketed.  She 
could  do  nothing  except  fold  her  hands 
and  patiently  wait  for  some  miraculous 
intervention. 

In  Morovenia  the  discreet  marrying 
age  is  about  sixteen.  Jeneka  was  eigh- 
teen— still  young  enough  and  of  a  most 
ravishing  weight,  but  the  slim  princess 
stood  as  a  slight,  yet  seemingly  insur- 
mountable barrier  between  her  and  all 
hopes  of  conventional  happiness, 
is 


IE  SLIM 


Count  Malagaski  did  not  know  that  the 
shameful  fact  of  Kalora's  thinness  was 
being  whispered  among  the  young  men 
of  Morovenia.  When  the  daughters 
were  out  for  their  daily  carriage-ride  both 
wrore  flowing  robes.  In  the  case  of  Ka- 
lora,  this  augmented  costume  was  in- 
tended to  conceal  the  absence  of  noble 
dimensions. 

It  is  not  good  form  in  Morovenia  for  a 
husband  or  father  to  discuss  his  home 
life,  or  to  show  enthusiasm  on  the  subject 
of  mere  woman ;  but  the  Count,  prompted 
by  a  fretful  desire  to  dispose  of  his  rap- 
idly maturing  offspring,  often  remarked 
to  the  high-born  young  gentlemen  of  his 
acquaintance  that  Kalora  was  a  most  re- 
markable girl  and  one  possessed  of  many 
charms,  leaving  them  to  infer,  if  they 
cared  to  do  so,  that  possibly  she  weighed 
at  least  one  hundred  and  eighty  pounds. 


TESLI 


These  casual  comments  did  not  seem  to 
arouse  any  burning  curiosity  among  the 
young  men,  and  up  to  the  day  of  Ka- 
lora's  nineteenth  anniversary  they  had  not 
had  the  effect  of  bringing  to  the  father 
any  of  those  guarded  inquiries  which, 
under  the  oriental  custom,  are  always  pre- 
liminary to  an  actual  proposal  of  mar- 


riage. 


Count  Selim  Malagaski  had  a  double 
reason  for  wishing  to  see  Kalora  married. 
While  she  remained  at  home  he  knew  that 
he  would  be  second  in  authority.  There 
is  an  occidental  misapprehension  to  the 
eif ect  that  every  woman  beyond  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Levant  is  a  languorous  and 
waxen  lily,  floating  in  a  milk- warm  pool 
of  idleness.  It  is  true  that  the  women  of 
a  household  live  in  certain  apartments 
set  aside  as  a  "harem."  But  "harem" 
literally  means  "forbidden" — that  is,  for- 

15 


bidden  to  the  public,  nothing  more. 
Every  villa  at  Newport  has  a  "harem." 

The  women  of  Morovenia  do  not  pour 
tea  for  men  every  afternoon,  and  they  are 
kept  well  under  cover,  but  they  are  not 
slaves.  They  do  not  inherit  a  nominal 
authority,  but  very  often  they  assume  a 
real  authority.  In  the  United  States, 
women  can  not  sail  a  boat,  and  yet  they 
direct  the  cruise  of  the  yacht.  Railway 
presidents  can  not  vote  in  the  Senate,  and 
yet  they  always  know  how  the  votes  are 
going  to  be  cast.  And  in  Morovenia, 
many  a  clever  woman,  deprived  of  speci- 
fied and  legal  rights,  has  learned  to  rule 
man  by  those  tactful  methods  which  are 
in  such  general  use  that  they  need  not  be 
specified  in  this  connection. 

Kalora  had  a  way  of  getting  around 
her  father.  After  she  had  defied  him 
and  put  him  into  a  stewing  rage,  she 
16 


would  smooth  him  the  right  way  and, 
with  teasing  little  cajoleries,  nurse  him 
back  to  a  pleasant  humor.  He  would 
find  himself  once  more  at  the  starting- 
place  of  the  controversy,  his  stern  com- 
mands unheeded,  and  the  disobedient 
daughter  laughing  in  his  very  face. 

Thus,  while  he  was  ashamed  of  her 
physical  imperfections,  he  admired  her 
cleverness.  Often  he  said  to  Popova: 
"I  tell  you,  she  might  make  some  man  a 
sprightly  and  entertaining  companion, 
even  if  she  is  slender." 

Whereupon  the  crafty  Popova  would 
reply:  "Be  patient,  your  Excellency. 
We  shall  yet  have  her  as  round  as  a 
dumpling." 

And  all  the  time  he  was  keeping  her 
trained  as  fine  as  the  proverbial  fiddle. 


17 


THE    GARDEN    PARTY 

Said  the  Governor- General  to  himself 
in  that  prime  hour  for  wide-awake  medi- 
tation— the  one  just  before  arising  for 
breakfast:  "She  is  not  all  that  she 
should  be,  and  yet,  millions  of  women 
have  been  less  than  perfect  and  most  of 
them  have  married." 

He  looked  hard  at  the  ceiling  for  a  full 
minute  and  then  murmured,  "Even  men 
have  their  shortcomings." 

This  declaration  struck  him  as  being 
sinful  and  almost  infidel  in  its  radicalism, 
and  yet  it  seemed  to  open  the  way  to  a 
logical  reason  why  some  titled  bachelor 
of  damaged  reputation  and  tottering 
finances  might  balance  his  poor 
18 


against  a  dowry  and  a  social  position, 
even  though  he  would  be  compelled  to 
figure  Kalora  into  the  bargain. 

It  must  be  known  that  the  Governor- 
General  was  now  simply  looking  for  a 
husband  for  Kalora.  He  did  not  hope 
to  top  the  market  or  bring  down  any  no- 
table catch.  He  favored  any  alliance 
that  would  result  in  no  discredit  to  his 
noble  lineage. 

"At  present  they  do  not  even  nibble/' 
he  soliloquized,  still  looking  at  the  ceil- 
ing. "They  have  taken  fright  for  some 
reason.  They  may  have  an  inkling  of 
the  awful  truth.  She  is  nineteen.  Next 
year  she  will  be  twenty — the  year  after 
that  twenty-one.  Then  it  would  be  too 
late.  A  desperate  experiment  is  better 
than  inaction.  I  have  much  to  gain  and 
nothing  to  lose.  I  must  exhibit  Kalora. 
I  shall  bring  the  young  men  to  her. 
19 


Some  of  them  may  take  a  fancy  to  her. 
I  have  seen  people  eat  sugar  on  tomatoes 
and  pepper  on  ice-cream.  There  may  be 
in  Morovenia  one — one  would  be  suffi- 
cient— one  bachelor  who  is  no  stickler 
for  full-blown  loveliness.  I  may  find  a 
man  who  has  become  inoculated  with 
western  heresies  and  believes  that  a  wo- 
man with  intellect  is  desirable,  even 
though  under  weight.  I  may  find  a  fool, 
or  an  aristocrat  who  has  gambled.  I  may 
stumble  upon  good  fortune  if  I  put  her 
out  among  the  young  men.  Yes,  I  must 
exhibit  her,  but  how — how?" 

He  began  reaching  into  thin  air  for  a 
pretext  and  found  one.  The  inspiration 
was  simple  and  satisfying. 

He  would  give  a  garden-party  in  honor 
of  Mr.  Rawley  Plumston,  the  British 
Consul.  Of  course  he  would  have  to  in- 
vite Mrs.  Plumston  and  then,  out  of 

20 


deference  to  European  custom,  he  would 
have  his  two  daughters  present.  It  was 
only  by  the  use  of  imported  etiquette 
that  he  could  open  the  way  to  direct 
courtship. 

Possibly  some  of  the  cautious  young 
noblemen  would  talk  with  Kalora,  and, 
finding  her  bright-eyed,  witty,  ready  in 
conversation  and  with  enthusiasm  for  big 
and  masculine  undertakings,  be  attracted 
to  her.  At  the  same  time  her  father  de- 
cided that  there  was  no  reason  why  her 
pitiful  shortage  of  avoirdupois  should  be 
candidly  advertised.  Even  at  a  garden- 
party,  where  the  guests  of  honor  are  two 
English  subjects,  the  young  women 
would  be  required  to  veil  themselves  up 
to  the  nose-tips  and  hide  themselves 
within  a  veritable  cocoon  of  soft  gar- 
ments. 

The  invitations  went  out  and  the  ac- 
21 


mm 


ceptances  came  in.  The  English  were 
flattered.  Count  Malagaski  was  buoyed 
by  new  hopes  and  the  daughters  were  in 
a  day-and-night  flutter,  for  neither  of 
them  had  ever  come  within  speaking  dis- 
tance of  the  real  young  man  of  their 
dreams. 

On  the  morning  of  the  day  set  apart 
for  the  debut  of  Kalora,  Count  Selim 
went  to  her  apartments,  and,  with  a 
rather  shamefaced  reluctance,  gave  his  di- 
rections. 

"Kalora,  I  have  done  all  for  you  that 
any  father  could  do  for  a  beloved  child 
and  you  are  still  thin,"  he  began. 

"Slender,"  she  corrected. 

"Thin,"  he  repeated.  "Thin  as  a  crane 
— a  mere  shadow  of  a  girl — and,  what  is 
more  deplorable,  apparently  indifferent 
to  the  sorrow  that  you  are  causing  those 
most  interested  in  your  welfare." 

22 


THE  SUM 


"I  am  not  indifferent,  father.  If, 
merely  by  wishing,  I  could  be  fat,  I  would 
make  myself  the  shape  of  the  French  bal- 
loon that  floated  over  Morovenia  last 
week.  I  would  be  so  roly-poly  that,  when 
it  came  time  for  me  to  go  and  meet  our 
guests  this  afternoon,  I  would  roll  into 
their  presence  as  if  I  were  a  tennis- 
ball." 

"Why  should  you  know  anything  about 
tennis-balls?  You,  of  all  the  young 
women  in  Morovenia,  seem  to  be  the  only 
one  with  a  fondness  for  athletics.  I 
have  heard  that  in  Great  Britain,  where 
the  women  ride  and  play  rude,  manly 
games,  there  has  been  developed  a  breed 
as  hard  as  flint — Allah  preserve  me  from 
such  women!" 

"Father,  you  are  leading  up  to  some- 
thing. What  is  it  you  wish  to  say?" 

"This.     You     have    persistently    dis- 

23 


obeyed  me  and  made  me  very  unhappy, 
but  to-day  I  must  ask  you  to  respect  my 
wishes.  Do  not  proclaim  to  our  guests 
the  sad  truth  regarding  your  deficiency." 

"Good!"  she  exclaimed  gaily.  "I  shall 
wear  a  robe  the  size  of  an  Arabian  tent, 
and  I  shall  surround  myself  with  soft  pil- 
lows, and  I  shall  wheeze  when  I  breathe 
and — who  knows? — perhaps  some  dark- 
eyed  young  man  worth  a  million  piasters 
will  be  deceived,  and  will  come  to  you  to- 
morrow, and  buy  me — buy  me  at  so  much 
a  pound."  And  she  shrieked  with  laugh- 
ter. 

"Stop!"  commanded  her  father.  "You 
refuse  to  take  me  seriously,  but  I  am  in 
earnest.  Do  not  humiliate  me  in  the 
presence  of  my  friends  this  afternoon." 

Then  he  hurried  away  before  she  had 
time  to  make  further  sport  of  him. 

To  Count  Selim  Malagaski  this  gar- 

24 


IE  SLIM 


den-party  was  the  frantic  effort  of  a 
sinking  man.  To  Kalora  it  was  a  lark. 
From  the  pure  fun  of  the  thing,  she 
obeyed  her  father.  She  wore  four  heav- 
ily quilted  and  padded  gowns,  one  over 
another,  and  when  she  and  Jeneka  were 
summoned  from  their  apartments  and 
went  out  to  meet  the  company  under  the 
trees,  they  were  almost  like  twins  and  both 
duck-like  in  general  outlines. 

First  they  met  Mrs.  Rawley  Plumston, 
a  very  tall,  bony  and  dignified  woman  in 
gray,  wearing  a  most  flowery  hat.  To 
every  man  of  Morovenia  Mrs.  Plumston 
was  the  apotheosis  of  all  that  was  unde- 
sirable in  her  sex,  but  they  were  exceed- 
ingly polite  to  her,  for  the  reason  that 
Morovenia  owed  a  great  deal  of  money 
in  London  and  it  was  a  set  policy  to  cul- 
tivate the  friendship  of  the  British. 

While  Jeneka  and  Kalora  were  being 

25 


presented  to  the  consul's  wife,  these  same 
young  men,  the  very  flower  of  bachelor- 
hood, stood  back  at  a  respectful  distance 
and  regarded  the  young  women  with  half  - 
concealed  curiosity.  To  be  permitted  to 
inspect  young  women  of  the  upper 
classes  was  a  most  unusual  privilege,  and 
they  knew  why  the  privilege  had  been  ex- 
tended to  them.  It  was  all  very  amusing, 
but  they  were  too  well  bred  to  betray 
their  real  emotions.  When  they  moved 
up  to  be  presented  to  the  sisters  they 
seemed  grave  in  their  salutations  and  re- 
strained themselves,  even  though  one  pair 
of  eyes,  peering  out  above  a  very  gauzy 
veil,  seemed  to  twinkle  with  mischief  and 
to  corroborate  their  most  pronounced  sus- 
picions. 

Out  of  courtesy  to  his  guests,  Count 
Malagaski  had  made  his  garden-party  as 
deadly  dull  as  possible.     Little  groups  of 
26 


TIE  SLIM 


bored  people  drifted  about  under  the  trees 
and  exchanged  the  usual  commonplace 
observations.  Tea  and  cakes  were  served 
under  a  canopy  tent  and  the  local  orches- 
tra struggled  with  pagan  music. 

Kalora  found  herself  in  a  wide  and 
easy  kind  of  a  basket-chair  sitting  under  a 
tree  and  chatting  with  Mrs.  Plumston. 
She  was  trying  to  be  at  her  ease,  and  all 
the  time  she  knew  that  every  young  man 
present  was  staring  at  her  out  of  the  cor- 
ner of  his  eye. 

Mrs.  Plumston,  although  very  tall  and 
evidently  of  brawny  strength,  had  a  twit- 
tering little  voice  and  a  most  confiding 
manner.  She  was  immensely  interested 
in  the  daughter  of  the  Governor- General. 
To  meet  a  young  girl  who  had  spent  her 
life  within  the  mysterious  shadows  of  an 
oriental  household  gave  her  a  tingling  in- 
terest, the  same  as  reading  a  forbidden 
27 


book.  She  readily  won  the  confidence  of 
Kalora,  and  Kalora,  being  most  ingenu- 
ous and  not  educated  to  the  wiles  of  the 
drawing-room,  spoke  her  thoughts  with 
the  utmost  candor. 

"I  like  you,"  she  said  to  Mrs.  Plums- 
ton,  "and,  oh,  how  I  envy  you!  You  go 
to  balls  and  dinners  and  the  theater,  don't 
you?" 

"Alas,  yes,  and  you  escape  them! 
How  I  envy  you!" 

"Your  husband  is  a  very  handsome 
man.  Do  you  love  him?" 

"I  tolerate  him." 

"Does  he  ever  scold  you  for  being 
thin?" 

"Does  he  what?" 

"Is  he  ever  angry  with  you  because  you 
are  not  big  and  plump  and — and — 
pulpy?" 

"Heavens,    no!     If   my   husband   has 

28 


any  private  convictions  regarding  my 
personal  appearance,  he  is  discreet  enough 
to  keep  them  to  himself.  If  he  isn't  sat- 
isfied with  me,  he  should  be.  I  have  been 
working  for  years  to  save  myself  from 
becoming  fat  and  plump  and — pulpy." 

"Then  you  don't  think  fat  women  are 
beautiful?" 

"My  child,  in  all  enlightened  countries 
adipose  is  woman's  worst  enemy.  If  I 
were  a  fat  woman,  and  a  man  said  that 
he  loved  me,  I  should  know  that  he  was 
after  my  bank-account.  Take  my  ad- 
vice, my  dear  young  lady,  and  bant." 

"Bant?" 

"Reduce.  Make  yourself  slender. 
You  have  beautiful  eyes,  beautiful  hair, 
a  perfect  complexion,  and  with  a  trim 
figure  you  would  be  simply  incompar- 
able." 

Kalora  listened,  trembling  with  sur- 
29 


prise  and  pleasure.  Then  she  leaned  over 
and  took  the  hand  of  the  gracious  Eng- 
lishwoman. 

"I  have  a  confession  to  make,"  she 
said  in  a  whisper.  "I  am  not  fat — I  am 
slim — quite  slim." 

And  then,  at  that  moment,  something 
happened  to  make  this  whole  story  worth 
telling.  It  was  a  little  something,  but  it 
was  the  beginning  of  many  strange  ex- 
periences, for  it  broke  up  the  wonderful 
garden-party  in  the  grounds  of  the  Gov- 
ernor-General, and  it  gave  Morovenia 
something  to  talk  about  for  many  weeks 
to  come.  It  all  came  about  as  follows : 

At  the  military  club,  the  night  before 
the  party,  a  full  score  of  young  men,  rep- 
resenting the  quality,  sat  at  an  oblong 
table  and  partook  of  refreshments  not 
sanctioned  by  the  Prophet.  They  were 
young  men  of  registered  birth  and  sup- 
so 


TIES! 


posititious  breeding,  even  though  most  of 
them  had  very  little  head  back  of  the  ears 
and  wore  the  hair  clipped  short  and  were 
big  of  bone,  like  work-horses,  and  had  the 
gusty  manners  of  the  camp. 

They  were  foolishly  gloating  over  the 
prospect  of  meeting  the  two  daughters  of 
the  Governor-General,  and  were  telling 
what  they  knew  about  them  with  much 
freedom,  for,  even  in  a  monarchy,  the 
chief  executive  and  his  family  are  public 
property  and  subject  to  the  censorship  of 
any  one  who  has  a  voice  for  talking. 

Of  these  male  gossips  there  were  a  few 
who  said,  with  gleeful  certainty,  that  the 
elder  daughter  was  a  mere  twig  who  could 
hide  within  the  shadow  of  her  bounteous 
and  incomparable  sister. 

"Wait  until  to-morrow  and  you  shall 
see,"  they  said,  wagging  their  heads  very 
wisely. 


To-morrow  had  come  and  with  it  the 
party  and  here  was  Kalora — a  pretty  face 
peering  out  from  a  great  pod  of  clothes* 

They  stood  back  and  whispered  and 
guessed,  until  one,  more  enterprising  than 
the  others,  suggested  a  bold  experiment 
to  set  all  doubts  at  rest. 

Count  Malagaski  had  provided  a  di- 
version for  his  guests.  A  company  of 
Arabian  acrobats,  on  their  way  from 
Constantinople  to  Paris,  had  been  inter- 
cepted, and  were  to  give  an  exhibition  of 
leaping  and  pyramid-building  at  one  end 
of  the  garden.  While  Kalora  was  chat- 
ting with  Mrs.  Plumston,  the  acrobats 
had  entered  and,  throwing  off  their  yel- 
low-and-black  striped  gowns,  were  pre- 
paring for  the  feats.  They  were  behind 
the  two  women  and  at  the  far  end  of  the 
garden.  Mrs.  Plumston  and  Kalora 
would  have  to  move  to  the  other  side  of  the 

32 


IE  SLIM 


tree  in  order  to  witness  the  exhibition. 
This  fact  gave  the  devil-may-care  young 
bachelors  a  ready  excuse. 

"Do  as  I  have  directed  and  you  shall 
learn  for  yourselves,"  said  the  one  who 
had  invented  the  tactics.  "I  tell  you  that 
what  you  see  is  all  shell.  Now  then — " 

Four  conspirators  advanced  in  a  half- 
careless  and  sauntering  manner  to  where 
Kalora  and  the  consul's  wife  sat  by  the 
sheltering  tree,  intent  upon  their  ex- 
change of  secrets. 

"Pardon  me,  Mrs.  Plumston,  but  the 
acrobats  are  about  to  begin,"  said  one  of 
the  young  men,  touching  the  fez  with  his 
forefinger. 

"Oh,  really?"  she  exclaimed,  looking 
up.  "We  must  see  them." 

"You  must  face  the  other  way,"  said 
the  young  man.  "They  are  at  the  east 
end  of  the  garden.  Permit  us." 

S3 


TIE  SLIM 


Whereupon  the  young  man  who  had 
spoken  and  a  companion  who  stood  at  his 
side  very  gently  picked  up  Mrs.  Plums- 
ton's  big  basket-chair  between  them  and 
carried  it  around  to  the  other  side  of  the 
tree.  And  the  two  young  men  who  had 
been  waiting  just  behind  picked  up  Ka- 
lora's  chair  and  carried  Tier  to  the  other 
side  of  the  tree,  and  put  her  down  beside 
the  consul's  wife. 

Did  they  carry  her?  No,  they  dandled 
her.  She  was  as  light  as  a  feather  for 
these  two  young  giants  of  the  military. 
They  made  a  palpable  show  of  the  ridicu- 
lous ease  with  which  they  could  lift  their 
burden.  It  may  have  been  a  forward 
thing  to  do,  but  they  had  done  it  with 
courtly  politeness,  and  the  consul's  wife, 
instead  of  being  annoyed,  was  pleased 
and  smiling  over  the  very  pretty  little  at- 
tention, for  she  could  not  know  at  the  mo- 
84 


I 


IE  SLIM 


ment  that  the  whole  maneuver  had  grown 
out  of  a  wager  and  was  part  of  a  detest- 
able plan  to  find  out  the  actual  weight 
of  the  Governor- General's  elder  daugh- 
ter. 

If  Mrs.  Plumston  did  not  understand, 
Count  Selim  Malagaski  understood.  So 
did  all  the  young  men  who  were  watching 
the  pantomime.  And  Kalora  under- 
stood. She  looked  up  and  saw  the  lurk- 
ing smiles  on  the  faces  of  the  two  gal- 
lants who  were  carrying  her,  and  later  the 
tittering  became  louder  and  some  of  the 
young  men  laughed  aloud. 

She  leaped  from  her  chair  and  turned 
upon  her  two  tormentors. 

"How  dare  you?"  she  exclaimed. 
"You  are  making  sport  of  me  in  the 
presence  of  my  father's  guests!  You 
have  a  contempt  for  me  because  I  am 
ugly.  You  mock  at  me  in  private  be- 

35 


man 


cause  you  hear  that  I  am  thin.  You  wish 
to  learn  the  truth  about  me.  Well,  I  will 
tell  you.  I  am  thin.  I  weigh  one  hun- 
dred and  eighteen  pounds." 

She  was  speaking  loudly  and  defiantly, 
and  all  the  young  men  were  backing 
away,  dismayed  at  the  outbreak.  Her 
father  elbowed  his  way  among  them, 
white  with  terror,  and  attempted  to  pac- 
ify her. 

"Be  still,  my  child!"  he  commanded. 
"You  don't  know  what  you  are  saying!" 

"Yes,  I  do  know  what  I  am  saying!" 
she  persisted,  her  voice  rising  shrilly. 
"Do  they  wish  to  know  about  me?  Must 
they  know  the  truth?  Then  look! 
Look!" 

With  sweeping  outward  gestures  she 

threw  off  the  soft  quilted  robes  gathered 

about  her,  tore  away  the  veil  and  stood 

before  them  in  a  white  gown  that  fairly 

36 


TESL1M 


revealed  every  modified  in-and-out  of  her 
figure. 

What  ensued?  Is  it  necessary  to  tell? 
The  costume  in  which  she  stood  forth  was 
no  more  startling  or  immodest  than  the 
simple  gown  which  the  American  high- 
school  girl  wears  on  her  Commencement 
Day,  and  it  was  decidedly  more  ample 
than  the  sum  of  all  the  garments  worn  at 
polite  social  gatherings  in  communities 
somewhat  to  the  west.  Nevertheless,  the 
company  stood  aghast.  They  were 
doubly  horrified — first,  at  the  effrontery 
of  the  girl,  and  second,  at  the  revelation 
of  her  real  person,  for  they  saw  that  she 
was  doomed,  helpless,  bereft  of  hope,  slim 
beyond  all  curing. 


HE    ARRIVES 

Kalora  was  alone. 

After  putting  the  company  to  con- 
sternation she  had  flung  herself  defiantly 
back  into  the  chair  and  directed  a  most; 
contemptuous  gaze  at  all  the  desirable 
young  men  of  her  native  land. 

The  Governor- General  made  a  choking 
attempt  to  apologize  and  explain,  and 
then,  groping  for  an  excuse  to  send  the 
people  away,  suggested  that  the  company 
view  the  new  stables.  The  acrobats 
were  dismissed.  The  guests  went  rapidly 
to  an  inspection  of  the  carriages  and 
horses.  They  were  glad  to  escape. 
Jeneka,  crushed  in  spirit  and  shamed  at 
the  brazen  performance  of  her  sister,  be- 

38 


mroiH 
uLlM 


gan  a  plaintive  conjecture  as  to  "what 
people  would  say,"  when  Kalora  turned 
upon  her  such  a  tigerish  glance  that  she 
fairly  ran  for  her  apartment,  although 
she  was  too  corpulent  for  actual  sprint- 
ing. Mrs.  Plumston  remained  behind  as 
the  only  comforter. 

"It  was  a  most  contemptible  proceed- 
ing, my  child.  When  they  lifted  us  and 
carried  us  to  the  other  side  of  the  tree  I 
thought  it  was  rather  nice  of  them; 
something  on  the  order  of  the  old  Walter 
Raleigh  days  of  chivalry,  and  all  that. 
And  just  think !  The  beasts  did  it  to  find 
out  whether  or  not  you  were  really  plump 
and  heavy.  It's  a  most  extraordinary  in- 
cident." 

"I  wouldn't  marry  one  of  them  now, 
not  if  he  begged  and  my  father  com- 
manded!" said  Kalora  bitterly.  "And 
poor  Jeneka!  This  takes  away  her  last 
39 


chance.  Until  I  am  married  she  can  not 
marry,  and  after  to-day  not  even  a  blind 
man  would  choose  me." 

"For  goodness'  sake,  don't  worry! 
You  tell  me  you  are  nineteen.  No  woman 
need  feel  discouraged  until  she  is  about 
thirty-five.  You  have  sixteen  years 
ahead  of  you." 

"Not  in  Morovenia." 
"Why  remain  in  Morovenia?" 
"We  are  not  permitted  to  travel." 
"Perhaps,  after  what  happened  to-day, 
your  father  will  be  glad  to  let  you  travel," 
said  Mrs.  Plumston  with  a  significant  lit- 
tle nod  and  a  wise  squint.     "Don't  you 
generally   succeed   in   having  your   own 
way  with  him?" 

"Oh,  to  travel — to  travel!"  exclaimed 
Kalora,  clasping  her  hands.  "If  I  am  to 
remain  single  and  a  burden  for  ever,  per- 
haps it  would  lighten  father's  grief  if  I 

40 


HE  SLIM 


resided  far  away.  My  presence  certainly 
would  remind  him  of  the  wreck  of  all  his 
ambitions,  but  if  I  should  settle  down  in 
Vienna  or  Paris,  or — "  she  paused  and 
gave  a  little  gasp — "or  if  anything  should 
happen  to  me,  if  I  should — should  disap- 
pear, that  is,  really  disappear,  Jeneka 
would  be  free  to  marry  and — ' 

"Oh,  pickles!"  said  Mrs.  Plumston. 
"I  have  heard  of  romantic  young  women 
jumping  overboard  and  taking  poison  on 
account  of  rich  young  men,  but  I  never 
heard  of  a  girl's  snuffing  herself  out  so  as 
to  give  her  sister  a  chance  to  get  mar- 
ried. The  thing  for  you  to  do  at  a  time 
like  this,  when  you  find  yourself  in  a  tan- 
gle, is  to  think  of  yourself  and  your  own 
chances  for  happiness.  Father  and  Je- 
neka will  take  care  of  themselves.  They 
are  popular  and  beloved  characters  here 
in  Morovenia.  They  are  not  taking  you 

41 


THE  SUM 


into  consideration  except  as  you  seem  to 
interfere  with  their  selfish  plans.  I  have 
made  it  a  rule  not  to  work  out  my  neigh- 
bor's destiny." 

"What  can  I  do?"  asked  Kalora,  seem- 
ingly impressed  by  the  earnestness  of  the 
consul's  wife. 

"Leave  Morovenia.  Keep  at  your 
father  until  he  consents  to  your  going. 
Here  you  are  despised  and  ridiculed — a 
victim  of  heathen  prejudice  left  over 
from  the  Dark  Ages.  Get  away,  even  if 
you  have  to  walk,  and  take  my  word  for 
it,  the  moment  you  leave  Morovenia  you 
will  be  a  very  beautiful  girl;  not  a  merely 
attractive  young  person,  but  what  we 
would  call  at  home  a  radiant  beauty — the 
oriental  type,  you  know.  And  as  a  per- 
sonal favor  to  me,  don't  be  fat." 

"No  fear  of  that,"  said  the  girl  with  a 


melancholy  attempt  at  a  smile.  "But 
you  must  go  and  join  the  others.  Do, 
please.  I  am  now  in  disgrace,  and  you 
may  compromise  your  social  standing  in 
Morovenia  if  you  remain  here  and  talk 
to  me." 

"I  dare  say  I  should  go.  I  have  a  hus- 
band who  requires  as  much  attention  and 
scolding  as  a  four-year-old.  Sometimes 
I  almost  favor  the  oriental  system  of  the 
husband's  directing  the  wife.  Good-by." 

"Good-by." 

Mrs.  Plumston  gave  her  a  kiss  and  a 
friendly  little  pat  on  the  arm,  and  walked 
away  toward  the  stables  with  a  swinging, 
heel-and-toe,  masculine  stride. 

Kalora  had  the  whole  garden  to  her- 
self. She  sat  squared  up  in  the  wicker 
chair  with  her  fists  clenched,  looking 
straight  ahead,  trying  in  vain  to  think  of 


some  plan  for  avenging  herself  upon  the 
whole  race  of  bachelors.  As  she  sat  thus 
some  one  spoke  to  her. 

"How  do  you  do?"  came  a  voice. 

She  was  startled  and  looked  about,  but 
saw  no  one. 

"Up  here!"  came  the  voice  again. 

She  looked  up  and  saw  a  young  man 
on  the  top  of  the  wall,  his  legs  hanging 
over.  Evidently  he  had  climbed  up  from 
the  outside,  and  yet  Kalora  had  never 
suspected  that  the  wall  could  be  climbed. 

He  was  smoothly  shaven,  with  blond 
hair  almost  ripe  enough  to  be  auburn;  he 
wore  a  gray  suit  of  rather  loose  and  care- 
less material,  a  belt,  but  no  waistcoat;  his 
trousers  were  reefed  up  from  a  pair  of 
saddle-brown  shoes,  and  the  silk  band 
around  his  small  straw  hat  was  tricolor ed. 
In  his  hand  was  a  paper-covered  book. 
S  wung  over  his  shoulder  was  a  camera  in 

44 


Up  here !  "  came  the  voice  again 


TESLI 


a  leather  case.  He  sat  there  on  top  of 
the  high  wall  and  gazed  at  Kalora  with  a 
grinning  interest,  and  she,  forgetting  that 
she  was  unveiled  and  clad  only  in  the  sim- 
ple garments  which  had  horrified  the  best 
people  of  Morovenia,  gazed  back  at  him, 
for  he  was  the  first  of  the  kind  she  had 
seen. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  she  asked 
wonderingly. 

"I  am  looking  for  the  show,"  he  replied. 
"They  told  me  down  at  the  hotel  that  a 
very  hot  bunch  of  acrobats  were  doing 
a  few  stunts  down  here  this  afternoon, 
and  I  thought  I'd  break  in  if  I  could. 
Wanted  to  get  some  pictures  of  them." 

"Were  you  invited?" 

"No,  but  that  doesn't  make  any  differ- 
ence. In  Cairo  I  went  to  a  native  wed- 
ding every  day.  If  I  passed  a  house 
where  there  was  a  wedding  being  pulled 

45 


TESLi 


off,  I  simply  went  inside  and  mingled. 
They  never  put  me  out — seemed  to  enjoy 
having  me  there.  I  suppose  they 
thought  it  was  the  American  custom  for 
outsiders  to  ring  in  at  a  wedding." 

"You  said  American,  didn't  you?  Are 
you  from  America?" 

"Do  I  look  like  a  Scandinavian?  I 
am  from  the  grand  old  commonwealth  of 
Pennsylvania.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  the 
town  of  Bessemer?" 

"I'm  afraid  not." 

"Did  you  ever  hear  of  the  Pike  family 
that  robbed  all  the  orphans,  tore  down 
the  starry  banner,  walked  on  the  humble 
working-girl  and  gave  the  double  cross  to 
the  common  people?  Did  you?" 

"Dear  me,  no,"  she  replied,  following 
him  vaguely. 

"Well,  I  am  Alexander  H.,  of  the  tribe 
of  Pike,  and  I  have  two  reasons  for  being 
46 


IE  SLIM 


in  your  beautiful  little  city.  One  is  Fed- 
eral grand  jury  and  the  other  is  ten-cent 
magazine.  You  know,  our  folks  are  sin- 
fully rich.  About  four  years  ago  I  came 
in  for  most  of  the  guvnor's  coin,  and  in 
trying  to  keep  up  the  traditions  of  the 
family,  I  have  made  myself  unpopular, 
but  I  didn't  know  how  unpopular  I  really 
was  until  I  got  this  magazine  from  home 
this  morning."  And  he  held  up  the  pa- 
per-covered book,  which  had  a  rainbow 
cover.  "They  have  been  writing  up  a 
few  of  us  captains  of  industry,  and  they 
have  said  everything  about  me  that  they 
could  say  without  having  the  thing  barred 
out  of  the  mails.  I  notice  that  you  speak 
our  kind  of  talk  fairly  well,  but  I  think 
I  can  take  you  by  the  hand  and  show  you 
a  lot  of  new  and  beautiful  English  lan- 
guage. I  will  read  this  to  you." 

Before  she  could  warn  him,  or  do  any- 
47 


TKSLi 


thing  except  let  out  a  horrified  "Oh-h!" 
he  had  leaped  lightly  from  his  high  perch 
and  was  standing  in  front  of  her. 

"I'm  afraid  you  don't  understand," 
she  said,  rising  and  taking  a  frightened 
survey  of  the  garden,  to  be  sure  that  no 
one  was  watching.  "Strangers  are  not 
permitted  in  here.  That  is,  men,  and 
more  especially — ah — Christians." 

"I'm  not  a  Christian,  and  I  can  prove  it 
by  this  magazine.  I  am  an  octopus,  and 
a  viper,  and  a  vampire,  and  a  man-eating 
shark.  I  am  what  you  might  call  a  com- 
posite zoo.  If  you  want  to  get  a  line  on 
me  just  read  this  article  on  The  Shame- 
less Brigand  of  Bessemer,  and  you  will 
certainly  find  out  that  I  am  a  nice  young 
fellow." 

Kalora  had  studied  English  for  years 
and  thought  she  knew  it,  and  yet  she 
found  it  difficult  fully  to  comprehend 

48 


all  the  figurative  phrases  of  this  pleasing 
young  stranger. 

"Do  I  understand  that  you  are  travel- 
ing abroad  because  of  your  unpopularity 
at  home?"  she  asked. 

"I  am  waiting  for  things  to  cool  down. 
As  soon  as  the  muck-rakers  wear  out  their 
rakes,  and  the  great  American  public  finds 
some  other  kind  of  hysterics  to  keep  it 
worked  up  to  a  proper  temperature,  I 
shall  mosey  back  and  resume  business  at 
the  old  stand.  But  why  tell  you  the  story 
of  my  life?  Play  fair  now,  and  tell  me 
a  lot  about  yourself.  Where  am  I?" 

"You  are  here  in  my  father's  private 
garden,  where  you  have  no  right  to  be." 

"And  father?" 

"Is  Count  Selim  Malagaski,  Governor- 
General  of  Morovenia." 

"Wow!    And  you?" 

"I  am  his  daughter." 
49 


IE  sn 


"The  daughter  of  all  that  must  be 
something.  Have  you  a  title?" 

"I  am  called  Princess." 

"Can  you  beat  that?  Climb  up  a  wall 
to  see  some  A-rabs  perform,  and  find  a 
real,  sure-enough  princess,  and  likewise, 
if  you  don't  mind  my  saying  so,  a  pip- 
pin." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,"  .she 
said. 

"A  corker." 

"Corker?" 

"I  mean  that  you're  a  good-looker — 
that  it's  no  labor  at  all  to  gaze  right  at 
you.  I  didn't  think  they  grew  them  so 
far  from  headquarters,  but  I  see  I'm 
wrong.  You  are  certainly  all  right. 
Pardon  me  for  saying  this  to  you  so  soon 
after  we  meet,  but  I  have  learned  that 
you  will  never  break  a  woman's  heart  by 
telling  her  that  she  is  a  beaut." 

50 


mOT  T1F 
•SUM 


Kalora  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and 
laughed.  She  was  beginning  to  compre- 
hend the  whimsical  humor  of  the  very 
unusual  young  man.  His  direct  and 
playful  manner  of  speech  amused  her, 
and  also  seemed  to  reassure  her.  And, 
when  he  seated  himself  within  a  few  in- 
ches of  her  elbow,  fanning  himself  with 
the  little  straw  hat,  and  calmly  inspecting 
the  tiny  landscape  of  the  forbidden  gar- 
den, she  made  no  protest  against  his  fa- 
miliarity, although  she  knew  that  she  was 
violating  the  most  sacred  rules  laid  down 
for  her  sex. 

She  reasoned  thus  with  herself : 

"To-day  I  have  disgraced  myself  to 
the  utmost,  and,  since  I  am  utterly 
shamed,  why  not  revel  in  my  lawlessness?" 

Besides,  she  wished  to  question  this 
young  man.  Mrs.  Plumston  had  said  to 
her:  "You  are  beautiful."  No  one  else 

51 


had  ever  intimated  such  a  thing.  In  fact, 
for  five  years  she  had  been  taunted  almost 
daily  because  of  her  lack  of  all  physical 
charms.  Perhaps  she  could  learn  the 
truth  about  herself  by  some  adroit  ques- 
tioning of  the  young  man  from  Pennsyl- 
vania. 

"You  have  traveled  a  great  deal?"  she 
asked. 

"Me  and  Baedeker  and  Cook  wrote  it," 
he  replied;  and  then,  seeing  that  she  was 
puzzled,  he  said:  "I  have  been  to  all  of 
the  places  they  keep  open." 

"You  have  seen  many  women  in  many 
countries?" 

"I  have.  I  couldn't  help  it,  and  I'm 
glad  of  it." 

"Then  you  know  what  constitutes 
beauty?" 

"Not  always.  What  is  sponge  cake 
for  me  may  be  sawdust  for  somebody 

52 


else.  Say,  I  rode  for  an  hour  in  a  'rick- 
shaw at  Nagoya  to  see  the  most  beautiful 
girl  in  Japan  and  when  we  got  to  the  tea- 
house they  trotted  out  a  little  shrimp  that 
looked  as  if  she'd  been  dried  over  a  barrel 
— you  know,  stood  bent  all  the  time,  as  if 
she  was  getting  ready  to  jump.  Her 
neck  was  no  bigger  than  a  gripman's 
wrist  and  she  had  a  nose  that  stood  right 
out  from  her  face  almost  an  eighth  of  an 
inch.  Her  eyes  were  set  on  the  bias  and 
she  was  painted  more  colors  than  a  band- 
wagon. I  said,  'If  this  is  the  champion 
geisha,  take  me  back  to  the  land  of  the 
chorus  girl.'  And  in  China!  Listen! 
I  caught  a  Chinese  belle  coming  down  the 
Queen's  Road  in  Hong- Kong  one  day, 
and  I  ran  up  an  alley.  I  have  seen  Pa- 
risian beauties  that  had  a  coat  of  white 
veneering  over  them  an  inch  thick,  and 
out  here  in  this  country  I  have  seen  so- 

53 


man 


called  cracker- jacks  that  ought  to  be 
doing  the  mountain-of -flesh  act  in  the 
Ringling  side-show.  So  there  you  are!" 

"But  in  your  own  country,  and  in  the 
larger  cities  of  the  world,  there  must  be 
some  sort  of  standard.  What  are  the  re- 
quirements? What  must  a  woman  be, 
that  all  men  would  call  her  beautiful?" 

"Well,  Princess,  that's  a  pretty  hard 
proposition  to  dope  out.  Good  looks  can 
not  be  analyzed  in  a  lab  or  worked  out  by 
algebra,  because,  I'm  telling  you,  the  one 
that  may  look  awful  lucky  to  me  may 
strike  somebody  else  as  being  fairly  punk. 
Providence  framed  it  up  that  way  so  as 
to  give  more  girls  a  chance  to  land  some- 
body. Still,  there  is  one  kind  that  makes 
a  hit  wherever  people  are  bright  enough 
to  sit  up  and  take  notice.  Now  I  sup- 
pose that  any  male  being  in  his  right 
senses  would  find  it  easy  to  look  at 

54 


a  woman  who  was  young  enough  and 
had  eyes  and  hair  and  teeth  and  the  other 
items,  all  doing  team-work  together,  and 
then  if  she  was  trim  and  slender " 

"Should  she  be  slender?"  interrupted 
Kalora,  leaning  toward  him. 

"Sure.  I  don't  mean  the  same  width 
all  the  way  up  and  down,  like  an  art  stu- 
dent, but  trim  and —  Here,  I'll  show 
you.  You  will  find  the  pictures  of  the 
most  beautiful  women  in  the  world  right 
here  in  the  ads  of  a  ten-cent  magazine. 
Look  them  over  and  you  will  understand 
what  I  mean." 

He  turned  page  after  page  and  showed 
her  the  tapering  goddesses  of  the  straight 
front,  the  tooth-powder,  the  camera,  the 
breakfast-food,  the  massage-cream,  and 
the  hair-tonic. 

"These  are  what  you  call  beautiful 
women?"  she  asked. 

55 


"These  are  about  the  limit." 

"Then  in  your  country  I  would  not  be 
considered  hideous,  would  I?" 

"Hideous?  Say,  if  you  ever  walked 
up  Fifth  Avenue  you  would  block  the 
traffic!  And  in  the  palm- garden  at  the 
Waldorf — why,  you  and  the  head  waiter 
would  own  the  place!  Are  you  trying  to 
string  me  by  asking  such  questions?  Are 
you  a  real  ingenue,  or  a  kidder?" 

"I  hardly  know  what  you  mean,  but  I 
assure  you  that  here  in  Morovenia  they 
laugh  at  me  because  I  am  not  fat." 

"This  is  a  shine  country,  and  you're  in 
wrong,  little  girl,"  said  Mr.  Pike,  in  a 
kindly  tone.  "Why  don't  you  duck?" 

"Duck?" 

"Leave  here  and  hunt  up  some  of  the 

red  spots  on  the  map.     You  know  what 

I  mean — away  to  the  bright  lights!     I 

don't  like  to  knock  your  native  land  but, 

56 


Tit  SUM 


honestly,  Morovenia  is  a  bad  boy.  I've 
struck  towns  around  here  where  you 
couldn't  buy  illustrated  post-cards.  They 
take  in  the  sidewalks  at  nine  o'clock  every 
night.  That  orchestra  down  at  the  hotel 
handed  me  a  new  coon  song  last  night — 
Bill  Bailey!  Can  you  beat  that?  As 
long  as  you  stay  here  you  are  hooked  up 
with  a  funeral." 

Kalora,  with  wrinkled  brow,  had  been 
striving  to  follow  him  in  his  figurative 
flights. 

"Strange,"  she  murmured.  "You  are 
the  second  person  I  have  met  to-day  who 
advises  me  to  go  away — to  the  west." 

"That's  the  tip!"  he  exclaimed  with  fer- 
vor. "Go  west  and  when  you  start,  keep 
on  going.  You  come  to  America  and 
bring  along  the  papers  to  show  that  you're 
a  real  live  princess  and  you'll  own  both 
sides  of  the  street.  We'll  show  you  more 
57 


real  excitement  in  two  weeks  than  you'll 
see  around  here  if  you  live  to  be  a  hun- 
dred." 

"I  should  like  to  go,  but —  Look! 
Hurry,  please!  You  must  go!" 

She  pointed,  and  young  Mr.  Pike 
turned  to  see  two  guards  in  baggy  uni- 
forms bearing  down  upon  him,  their  eyes 
bulging  with  amazement. 

"Shall  I  try  to  put  up  a  bluff,  or  fight 
it  out?"  he  asked,  as  he  stood  up  to  meet 
them. 

"You  can  not  explain,"  gasped  Kalora. 
"Run!  Run!  They  know  you  have  no 
right  here.  This  means  going  to  prison 
— perhaps  worse." 

"Does  it?"  he  asked,  between  his 
set  teeth.  "If  those  two  brunettes  get 
me,  they'll  have  to  go  some." 

When  the  two  pounced  upon  him  he 
made  no  resistance  and  they  captured 


him.  He  stood  between  them,  each  of 
them  clutching  an  arm  and  breathing 
heavily,  not  only  from  exertion,  but  alsa 
out  of  a  sense  of  triumph 


VI 

HE    DEPARTS 

And  now,  in  order  to  give  a  key  to  the 
surprising  performances  of  Alexander 
H.  Pike,  it  will  be  necessary  to  call  up 
certain  biographical  data. 

When  he  was  in  the  Hill  School  he  won 
the  pole  vault,  but  later,  in  his  real  colle- 
giate days,  he  never  could  come  within  two 
inches  of  Varsity  form,  and  therefore 
failed  to  make  the  track-team. 

While  attending  the  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology he  worked  one  whole  autumn  to 
perfect  an  offensive  play  which  was  to  be 
used  against  "Buff"  Rodigan,  of  the 
semi-professional  athletic-club  team. 
This  play  was  known  as  "giving  the 
shoulder,"  with  the  solar  plexus  as  the 
60 


point  of  attack.  The  purpose  of  the  play 
was  not  to  kill  the  opposing  player,  but 
to  induce  him  to  relinquish  all  interest  in 
the  contest. 

Furthermore,  Mr.  Pike,  while  spending 
a  month  or  more  at  a  time  in  New  York 
City,  during  his  post-graduate  days,  had 
worked  with  Mr.  Mike  Donovan,  in  order 
to  keep  down  to  weight.  Mr.  Donovan 
had  illustrated  many  tricks  to  him,  one  of 
the  best  being  a  low  feint  with  the  left, 
followed  by  a  right  cross  to  the  point  of 
the  jaw. 

While  the  two  bronze-colored  guards 
stood  holding  him,  Mr.  Pike  rapidly  took 
stock  of  his  accomplishments,  and  formu- 
lated a  program.  With  a  sudden  twist  he 
cleared  himself,  sprang  away  from  the 
two,  and  jumped  behind  a  tree.  One 
soldier  started  to  the  right  of  the  tree  and 
the  other  to  the  left,  so  as  to  close  in  upon 
61 


TIE  SLIM 


him  and  retake  him.  This  was  what  he 
wanted,  for  he  had  them  "spread,"  and 
could  deal  with  them  singly. 

He  used  the  Donovan  tactics  on  the 
first  guard,  and  they  worked  out  with 
shameful  ease.  When  the  soldier  saw  the 
left  coming  for  the  pit  of  his  stomach, 
he  crouched  and  hugged  himself,  thereby 
extending  his  jaw  so  that  it  waited  there 
with  the  sun  shining  on  it  until  the  young 
man's  right  swing  came  across  and 
changed  the  middle  of  the  afternoon  to 
midnight.  Number  one  was  lying  in  pro- 
found slumber  when  Alumnus  Pike 
turned  to  greet  number  two. 

The  second  soldier,  having  witnessed 
the  feat  of  pugilism,  doubled  his  fists  and 
extended  them  awkwardly,  coming  with 
a  rush.  Mr.  Pike  suddenly  squatted  and 
leaned  forward,  balancing  on  his  finger- 
tips, until  number  two  was  about  to  fall 
62 


upon  him  and  crush  him,  and  then  he  arose 
with  that  rigid  right  shoulder  aimed  as  a 
catapult.  There  was  a  sound  as  when  the 
air-brake  is  disconnected,  and  number 
two  curled  over  limply  on  the  ground  and 
made  faces  in  an  effort  to  resume  breath- 
ing. 

Mr.  Pike  picked  up  his  magazine  and 
put  it  under  his  coat.  He  buttoned  the 
coat,  smiled  in  a  pale,  but  placid  manner 
at  Kalora,  who  was  still  immovable  with 
terror,  and  then  he  proceeded  to  vindicate 
his  "prep  school"  training.  He  ran  over 
to  the  canopy  tent,  under  which  the  re- 
freshments had  been  served,  pulled  out 
one  of  the  poles  and,  pointing  it  ahead  of 
him,  ran  straight  for  the  wall. 

Kalora,  watching  him,  regarded  this  as 
a  wholly  insane  proceeding.     Was  he  go- 
ing to  attempt  to  poke  a  hole  through  a 
wall  three  feet  thick? 
63 


TTESLi 


Just  as  he  seemed  ready  to  flatten  him- 
self against  the  stones,  he  dropped  the 
end  of  the  pole  to  the  ground  and  shot 
upward  like  a  rocket.  Kalora  saw  him 
give  an  upward  twist  and  wriggle,  fling 
himself  free  from  the  pole  and  disappear 
on  the  other  side  of  the  wall,  the  camera 
following  like  the  tail  of  a  comet.  As  he 
did  so,  number  two,  coming  to  a  sitting 
posture,  began  to  shriek  for  reinforce- 
ments. Number  one  was  up  on  his  el- 
bow, regarding  the  affairs  of  this  world 
with  a  dreamy  interest. 

Fortunately  for  the  Governor-General, 
the  participants  in  the  exploded  garden- 
party  had  escaped  at  the  very  first  op- 
portunity. 

Count  Malagaski,  greatly  perturbed 
and  almost  in  a  state  of  collapse  over  the 
unhappy  affair  in  the  garden,  was  return- 
ing to  his  apartments  when  the  second  sur- 
64 


TIOLIM 


prising  episode  of  the  day  came  to  a 
noisy  climax. 

He  heard  the  uproar  and  had  the  two 
guards  brought  before  him.  They  re- 
ported that  they  had  found  a  stranger  in 
the  garb  of  an  infidel  seated  within  the  se- 
cret garden  chatting  with  the  Princess 
Kalora.  They  did  not  agree  in  their  de- 
scriptions of  him,  but  each  maintained 
that  the  intruder  was  a  very  large  person 
of  forbidding  appearance  and  terrific 
strength. 

"How  did  he  manage  to  escape?"  asked 
the  Governor- General. 

"By  jumping  over  the  wall." 

"Over  a  wall  ten  feet  high?"  demanded 
the  Governor- General. 

"Without  touching  his  hands,  sir.  He 
was  very  tall ;  must  have  been  seven  feet." 

"If  you  ever  had  an  atom  of  gray  mat- 
ter, evidently  this  stranger  has  beaten  it 

65 


HE  SLIM 


out  of  you.  Hurry  and  notify  the  po- 
lice!" 

Kalora's  candid  version  of  the  whole 
affair  was  hardly  less  startling  than  that 
of  the  guards.  The  stranger  had  come 
over  the  wall  suddenly,  much  to  her 
alarm.  He  attempted  to  converse  with 
her,  but  she  sternly  ordered  him  from  the 
premises.  He  was  exceedingly  tall,  as 
the  guards  had  said,  and  very  dark,  with 
rather  long  hair  and  curling  black  mus- 
tache. He  addressed  her  in  English,  but 
spoke  with  a  marked  German  accent. 

This  description,  faithfully  set  down  by 
Popova,  was  carried  away  to  the  secret 
police  of  Morovenia,  said  to  be  the  most 
astute  in  the  world.  They  were  in- 
structed to  watch  all  trains  and  guard  the 
frontier  and,  as  soon  as  they  had  their 
prisoner  safely  put  away  in  the  lower  dun- 
geon of  the  municipal  prison,  they  were  to 
66 


TO  SUM 


notify  the  Governor- General,  who  would 
privately  pass  sentence. 

A  crime  against  any  member  of  the 
ruler's  household  comes  under  a  separate 
category  and  need  not  be  tried  in  public 
sessions.  For  entering  a  royal  harem  or 
addressing  a  woman  of  title  the  sentences 
range  from  the  bastinado  to  solitary  con- 
finement for  life. 

No  wonder  Kalora  waited  in  trembling. 
Like  every  other  provincial  she  had  much 
respect  for  the  indigenous  constabulary. 
She  did  not  believe  it  possible  for  the 
pleasing  stranger  to  break  through  the 
network  that  would  be  woven  about  him. 

Shunning  her  father  and  sister,  and 
shunned  by  them,  she  waited  many  sleep- 
less hours  in  her  own  apartments  for  the 
inevitable  news  from  beyond  the  walls. 

Next   morning   there   came   to   her   a 
cheering  and  terrifying  message. 
67 


VII 

THE    ONLY    KOLDO 

Three  hours  after  his  pole-vault,  Mr. 
Alexander  H.  Pike,  wearing  a  dinner- 
jacket  newly  ironed  by  his  man-slave,  and 
with  a  soft  hat  crushed  jauntily  down  over 
the  right  ear,  was  pacing  back  and  forth 
in  the  main  corridor  of  the  Hotel  de  1'Eu- 
rope  waiting  for  the  dread  summons  to 
the  table  d'hote. 

He  had  to  admit  to  himself  that  his 
nerves  seemed  to  be  about  as  taut  as  piano 
wires.  He  told  himself  that  possibly  he 
was  "up  against  it,"  and  yet  he  had  stood 
on  the  brink  of  disaster  so  often  during 
his  college  career  without  acquiring  ver- 
tigo, that  the  experience  of  the  afternoon 
was  like  a  joyous  renewal  of  youth. 
68 


He  had  no  set  program  but  he  had  a 
feeling  that  if  he  was  to  be  questioned  he 
would  lie  entertainingly. 

Of  one  thing  he  was  certain — it  would 
help  his  case  if  he  made  no  attempt  to 
hurry  across  the  frontier.  He  believed  in 
the  wisdom  of  hunting  up  the  authorities 
whenever  the  authorities  were  hunting  for 
him.  For  instance,  in  the  prep  school, 
after  getting  the  cow  into  the  chapel,  he 
discovered  her  there  and  notified  the  prin- 
cipal and  was  the  only  boy  who  did  not 
fall  under  suspicion.  To  assume  a  child- 
like innocence  and  to  bluff  magnificently, 
— these  had  been  the  twin  rules  that  had 
saved  him  so  often  and  would  save  him 
now,  unless  he  should  be  confronted  by 
the  princess  or  the  two  guards,  in  which 
case — he  whistled  softly. 

Suddenly  two  men  came  slamming  in 
at  the  front  door  and  stalked  down  the 
69 


TO  SUM 


avenue  of  palms.  They  seemed  to  be 
throbbing  with  the  importance  of  their  er- 
rand, as  they  moved  toward  a  little 
side  office,  which  was  the  official  lair  of 
the  manager. 

One  of  the  men  was  elderly  and  wiz- 
ened and  the  other  was  a  detective.  Pike 
knew  it  as  soon  as  he  glanced  at  the  heavy 
jowls  and  the  broad  face  and  heard  the 
authoritative  footfall.  He  knew,  also, 
that  he  was  not  a  bona  fide  detective,  but 
a  municipal  detective,  who  is  paid  a 
monthly  salary  and  walks  stealthily  along 
side  streets  in  citizen's  dress,  all  the  time 
imagining  that  the  people  he  meets  take 
him  to  be  a  merchant  or  a  lawyer.  In 
this  he  is  mistaken,  for  he  resembles  noth- 
ing except  a  municipal  detective. 

If  Mr.  Pike  had  known  that  the  officer 
who  accompanied  Popova  was  the  cele- 
brated Koldo,  chief  of  the  secret  service, 
70 


no  doubt  the  impulse  to  retreat  to  his 
apartment  and  get  behind  the  bed  cano- 
pies would  have  been  stronger.  He 
knew,  however,  that  no  detective  of  an- 
alytical methods  would  expect  to  find  the 
criminal  standing  at  his  elbow,  so  he  fol- 
lowed the  two  over  to  the  office  and  calmly 
wedged  himself  into  the  conference. 

The  great  Koldo  was  agitated  as  he 
told  his  story  to  the  manager,  who  was  a 
polite  and  sympathetic  importation  from 
Switzerland.  Popova  stood  by  and  cor- 
roborated by  nodding. 

"An  outrage  of  the  most  dreadful  na- 
ture has  been  reported  from  the  palace," 
said  Koldo. 

"Dear  me!"  murmured  the  manager. 
"I  am  so  sorry." 

"A  stranger  scaled  the  wall  and  en- 
tered the  forbidden  precincts.  He  ad- 
dressed himself  to  the  Princess  Kalora 
71 


THE  SUM 


with  most  insulting  familiarity.  Two  of 
the  household  guards  captured  him,  but 
he  escaped  after  beating  them  brutally. 
The  report  of  the  whole  affair  and  a  de- 
scription of  the  man  have  been  brought  to 
me  by  the  esteemed  Popova — this  gentle- 
man here,  who  is  court  interpreter  and 
instructor  in  languages  to  the  royal  f  am- 

Uy." 

Popova  nodded  and  Mr.  Pike  saw  the 
scattered  spires  of  Bessemer,  Pennsyl- 
vania, whirling  away  into  a  cloud  of  dis- 
appearance. 

"If  you  have  a  description  of  the  man, 
no  doubt  you  will  be  able  to  find  him," 
he  said,  knowing  that  this  kind  of  speech 
would  strengthen  his  plea  of  innocence 
when  brought  out  at  the  trial. 

The  chief  of  the  secret  service  turned 
and  looked  wondermgly  at  the  bland 
stranger  and  resumed:  "After  some  re- 
72 


TIE  SLIM 


flection  I  have  decided  to  make  inquiries 
at  all  the  hotels,  to  learn  if  any  foreigner 
answering  this  description  has  lately  ar- 
rived in  the  city." 

"You  may  be  sure  that  any  informa- 
tion I  possess  will  be  put  at  your  disposal 
immediately,"  said  the  manager,  with  a 
smile  and  a  professional  bow. 

The  only  Koldo,  breathing  deeply, 
brought  from  his  pocket  a  sheet  of  paper, 
while  Mr.  Pike  propped  himself  deliber- 
ately against  the  door  and  tried  to  mold 
his  features  into  that  expression  of  guile- 
less innocence  which  he  had  observed  on 
the  face  of  a  cherub  in  the  Vatican. 

"He  is  very  rugged  and  powerful," 
said  the  detective,  referring  to  his  notes. 
"Large,  quite  large — black  hair,  dark 
eyes  with  a  glance  that  seems  to  pierce 
through  anything — long  mustache,  also 
black — wears  much  jewelry — speaks  with 
73 


TO  SI 


a  marked  German  accent — wears  a  suit  of 
Scotch  plaid — heavy  military  boots." 

Mr.  Pike  removed  his  hat  and  allowed 
the  electric  light  to  twinkle  on  his  ruddy 
hair. 

"How — ah — where  did  you  get  this  de- 
scription?" he  asked  gently. 

"From  the  Princess  herself,"  replied 
Popova.  "She  saw  him  at  close  range." 

"Believe  me,  I  am  sorry,  but  no  one  an- 
swering the  description  has  been  at  my 
hotel,"  said  the  manager. 

"Then  I  shall  go  to  the  Hotel  Bristol 
and  the  Hotel  Victoria,"  announced 
Koldo,  with  something  of  fierce  deter- 
mination in  his  tone. 

"An  excellent  plan,"  assented  the  man- 
ager. 

"Would  you  mind  if  I  butted  in  with  a 
suggestion?"  said  Mr.  Pike,  laying  a 
friendly  hand  on  the  arm  of  the  redoubt- 
74 


mr*T  fir 
SUM 


able  Koldo.  "Don't  you  think  it  would 
be  better  if  you  went  alone  to  these  hotels? 
This  distinguished  gentleman,"  indicat- 
ing Popova,  "is  well  known  on  account  of 
being  a  high  guy  up  at  the  palace.  Sure 
as  you  live,  if  he  trails  around  with  you, 
you  will  be  spotted.  You  don't  want  to 
hunt  this  fellow  with  a  brass  band.  Be- 
sides, you  don't  need  any  help,  do  you?" 
— to  the  head  of  the  secret  service. 

"Certainly  not,"  replied  the  famous  de- 
tective, swelling  visibly.  "  I  have  all  the 
data — already  I  am  planning  my  cam- 
paign." 

"Then  I  should  like  to  have  a  talk  with 
Pop-what's-his-name.  I  think  I  can  slip 
him  a  few  valuable  pointers.  You  go 
right  along  and  nail  your  man  and  we'll 
sit  here  in  the  shade  of  the  sheltering  palm 
and  tell  each  other  our  troubles." 

"I  must  return  to  the  palace  quite 
75 


TIE  SLIM 


soon,"  murmured  Popova,  gazing  at  the 
stranger  uneasily. 

"Call  a  carriage  for  the  professor," 
spoke  up  Mr.  Pike  briskly,  to  the  mana- 
ger. "I  know  his  time  is  valuable,  so 
we'll  get  down  to  business  immediately, 
if  not  sooner." 

The  manager  knew  a  millionaire's 
voice  when  he  heard  it,  so  he  hurried  away. 
The  impatient  Koldo  said  that  he  would 
communicate  directly  with  the  palace  as 
soon  as  he  had  effected  the  capture,  and 
started  for  the  front  door.  Then,  re- 
membering himself,  he  went  out  the  back 
way. 

The  old  tutor,  finding  himself  alone 
with  Mr.  Pike,  was  not  permitted  to  re- 
lapse into  embarrassment. 

"In  the  first  place,  I  want  you  to  know 
who  and  what  I  am,"  said  Mr.  Pike. 
"Come  into  my  suite  and  I'll  show  you 
76 


IE  Ml 


something.     Then  you'll  see  that  you  re 
not  wasting  your  time  on  a  light-weight." 

He  led  the  way  to  a  large  parlor  or- 
nately done  in  red,  and  pulled  out  from  a 
leather  trunk  a  passport  issued  by  the  De- 
partment of  State  of  the  United  States 
of  America.  It  was  a  huge  parchment, 
with  pictorial  embellishments,  heavy 
Gothic  type  and  a  seal  about  the  size  of  a 
pie.  Mr.  Pike's  physical  peculiarities 
were  enumerated  and  there  was  a  direct 
request  that  the  bearer  be  shown  every 
courtesy  and  attention  due  a  citizen  of 
the  great  republic.  Popova  looked  it 
over  and  was  impressed. 

"It  isn't  everybody  that  gets  those," 
said  Mr.  Pike,  as  he  put  the  document 
carefully  back  into  the  trunk  and  covered 
it  with  shirts.  "Have  a  red  chair.  Take 
off  your  hat — ah,  I  remember,  you  leave 
that  on,  don't  you?" 
77 


noil 


The  old  gentleman  seated  himself, 
somewhat  reassured  by  the  cheery  manner 
of  his  host,  who  sat  in  front  of  him  and 
beamed. 

Mr.  Pike,  supposed  to  be  given  to  va- 
pory and  aimless  conversation,  really  was 
a  general.  Already  we  have  learned  that 
he  based  his  every-day  conduct  on  a 
groundwork  of  safe  principles.  He  had 
certain  private  theories,  which  had  stood 
the  test,  and  when  following  these  theo- 
ries he  proceeded  with  bustling  confidence. 
One  of  his  theories  was  that  every  man  in 
the  world  has  a  grievance  and  regards 
himself  as  much-abused,  and  in  order  to 
win  the  regard  and  confidence  of  that 
man,  all  one  has  to  do  is  feel  around  for 
the  grievance  and  then  play  upon  it. 
Mr.  Pike,  in  his  province  of  employer, 
had  been  compelled  to  study  the  methods 
of  successful  labor-union  agitators. 
78 


"You  don't  know  much  about  me,  but 
I  know  plenty  about  you,"  he  began,  clos- 
ing one  eye  and  nodding  wisely.  "I 
hadn't  been  here  very  long  before  I  found 
out  who  was  the  real  brains  of  that  out- 
fit up  at  the  palace." 

"Really,  you  know,  we  are  not  supposed 
to  discuss  the  merits  of  our  ruler,"  said 
Popova,  fairly  startled  at  the  candid  tone 
of  the  other.  He  lifted  one  hand  in  timid 
deprecation. 

"Of  course  you're  not.  That's  why 
some  one  who  is  simply  a  figurehead  goes 
on  taking  all  the  credit  for  tricks  turned 
by  a  smart  fellow  who  is  working  for  him. 
Now,  if  you  lived  in  the  dear  old  land 
of  ready  money,  where  the  accident  of 
birth  doesn't  give  any  man  the  right  to 
sit  on  somebody  else's  neck,  you'd  be  a 
big  gun.  You'd  have  money  tod  a  pull 
and  probably,  before  you  got  through, 
79 


IK  SUM 


you'd  be  investigated.  Over  here,  you 
are  deliberately  kept  in  the  background. 
You  are  the  Patsy." 

"The  what?" 

"The  squidge — that  means  the  fellow 
who  does  all  the  worrying  and  gets  noth- 
ing out  of  it.  Now,  before  you  return  to 
what  you  call  the  palace,  and  which  looks 
to  me  like  the  main  building  of  the  Alle- 
gheny Brick  Works,  will  you  do  me  the 
honor  of  going  into  that  cave  of  gloom, 
known  as  the  American  bar,  and  hitting 
up  just  one  small  libation?" 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  catch  your  mean- 
ing," said  Popova,  who  felt  himself 
somewhat  smothered  by  rhetoric. 

"Into  the  bar — down  at  the  little  iron 
table — business  of  hoisting  beverage." 

"We  of  the  faith  are  not  supposed  to 
partake  of  any  drink  containing  even  a 
small  percentage  of  alcohol." 

80 


TIE  Mi 


"I'm  not  supposed  to  dally  with  it  my- 
self, having  been  brought  up  on  cistern 
water,  but  I  find  in  traveling  that  I  en- 
tertain a  more  kindly  feeling  for  you 
strange  foreign  people  when  I  carry  a 
medium-sized  headlight.  Come  along, 
now.  Don't  compel  me  to  tear  your 
clothes." 

There  was  no  resisting  the  masterful 
spirit  of  the  young  steel  magnate,  and 
Popova  was  led  away  to  a  remote  apart- 
ment, where  a  single  shelf,  sparsely  set 
with  bottles,  made  a  weak  effort  to  repro- 
duce the  fabled  splendors  of  far-away 
New  York. 

"Let's  see,  what  shall  we  tackle?"  asked 
Mr.  Pike,  as  he  checked  down  the  line 
with  a  rigid  forefinger.  "If  you  don't 
care  what  happens  to  you,  we  might  try  a 
couple  of  cocktails — that  is,  if  you  like 
the  taste  of  eau  de  quinine.  Oh,  I'll  tell 

81 


you  what!  Here  are  lemons,  seltzer  and 
gin.  Boy,  two  gin  fizzes." 

The  attendant,  who  was  very  juvenile 
and  much  afraid  of  his  job,  smiled  and 
shook  his  head. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  never 
heard  of  a  gin  fizz?"  asked  Mr.  Pike. 
"All  the  ingredients  within  reach,  simply 
waiting  to  be  introduced  to  each  other, 
and  you  have  been  holding  them  apart. 
You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself. 
Bring  out  some  ice.  Produce  your  jig- 
ger. Get  busy.  Hand  me  the  tools  and 
I'll  do  this  myself." 

Then,  while  the  other  two  looked  on  in 
abashed  admiration,  Mr.  Pike  deftly 
squeezed  the  lemons  and  splashed  in  allo- 
pathic portions  of  the  crystal  fluid  and 
used  ice  most  wastefully.  After  vigor- 
ous shaking  and  patient  straining  he  shot 
a  seething  stream  of  seltzer  into  each 

82 


TESLI 


glass  and  finally  delivered  to  Popova  a 
translucent  drink  that  was  very  tall  and 
capped  with  foam. 

"Hide  that,  Professor,"  he  said.  "In 
a  few  minutes  you  will  speak  several  new 
languages." 

Popova  sipped  conservatively. 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  urged  Mr.  Pike, 
encouragingly.  "If  the  boy  watched  me 
carefully,  possibly  he  can  duplicate  the 
order." 

The  youth  was  more  than  willing,  for 
he  seldom  received  instruction.  With 
now  and  then  a  word  of  counsel  or  warn- 
ing from  the  wise  man  of  the  west  in  the 
corner,  he  cautiously  assembled  two  other 
fizzes,  while  Mr.  Pike,  in  a  most  noncha- 
lant and  roundabout  manner,  sought 
information  concerning  affairs  of  state, 
local  politics,  the  Governor- General's 
household  and  Princess  Kalora.  Popova 

83 


roam 


told  more  than  he  had  meant  to  tell  and 
more  than  he  knew  that  he  was  telling. 

It  may  have  been  that  the  fizzes  were 
insidious  or  that  Mr.  Pike  was  unduly 
persuasive,  or  that  a  combination  of  these 
two  powerful  influences  moved  the  el- 
derly tutor  to  impulses  of  unusual  gener- 
osity. At  any  rate,  he  found  himself 
possessed  of  an  affection  for  the  young 
man  from  Bessemer,  Pennsylvania.  It 
was  an  affection  both  fatherly  and  broth- 
erly. When  Mr.  Pike  asked  him  to  per- 
form just  a  small  service  for  him,  he 
promised  and  then  promised  again  and 
was  still  promising  when  his  host  went 
with  him  to  the  carriage  and  said  that  he 
had  not  lived  in  vain  and  that  in  years  to 
come  he  would  gather  his  grandchildren 
around  him  and  tell  of  the  circumstances 
of  his  meeting  with  the  greatest  scholar 
in  southeastern  Europe. 

84 


VIII 

BY    MESSENGER 

On  the  morning  after  the  strange  hap- 
penings in  the  garden,  Kalora  sat  by  one 
of  the  cross-barred  windows  overlooking 
a  side  street,  and  envied  the  humble  citi- 
zens and  unimportant  woman  drifting 
happily  across  her  field  of  vision. 

Never  in  all  her  life  had  she  walked  out 
alone.  The  sweet  privilege  of  courting 
adventure  had  been  denied  her.  And  yet 
she  felt,  on  this  morning,  an  almost  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  the  outside  world, 
for  had  she  not  talked  with  a  valorous 
young  man  who  could  leap  over  high  walls 
and  subdue  giants  and  pay  compliments? 
He  had  thrown  a  sudden  glare  of  ro- 
mance across  her  lonesome  pathway.  The 

85 


few  minutes  with  him  seemed  to  encom- 
pass everything  in  life  that  was  worth 
remembering.  She  told  herself  that  al- 
ready she  liked  him  better  than  any  other 
young  man  she  had  met,  which  was  not 
surprising,  for  he  had  been  the  first  to  sit 
beside  Ler  and  look  into  her  eyes  and  tell 
her  that  she  was  beautiful.  She  knew 
that  whatever  of  wretchedness  the  years 
might  hold  in  store  for  her,  no  local  edict 
could  rob  her  of  one  precious  memory. 
She  had  locked  it  up  and  put  it  away,  be- 
yond the  reach  of  courts  and  relatives. 

During  many  wakeful  hours  she  had  re- 
called each  minute  detail  of  that  amazing 
interview  in  the  garden,  and  had  tried  to 
estimate  and  foreshadow  the  young  man's 
plan  of  escape  from  the  secret  police. 

Perhaps  he  had  been  taken  during  the 
night.  The  greatest  good  fortune  that 
she  could  picture  for  him  was  a  quick 
86 


flight  across  the  frontier,  which  meant 
that  he  would  never  return — that  she  had 
seen  him  once  and  could  not  hope  to  see 
him  again. 

In  her  contemplation  of  the  luminous 
figure  of  the  Only  Young  Man,  she  had 
ceased  to  speculate  concerning  her  own 
misfortunes.  The  fact  of  her  disgrace 
remained  in  the  background,  eclipsed — not 
in  evidence  except  as  a  dim  shadow  over 
the  day. 

While  she  sat  immovable,  gazing  into 
the  street,  feeling  within  herself  a  tumult 
which  was  not  of  pain,  nor  yet  of  pleas- 
ure, but  a  satisfactory  commingling  of 
both,  she  heard  her  name  spoken.  Pop- 
ova  was  standing  in  the  doorway.  He 
greeted  her  with  a  smile  and  bow,  both  of 
which  struck  her  as  being  singularly  af- 
fected, for  he  was  not  given  to  polite  ob- 
servances. As  he  squatted  near  her,  she 
87 


noticed  that  he  was  tremulous  and  seemed 
almost  frightened  about  something. 

"I  have  come  to  tell  you  that  I  regret 
exceedingly  the — the  distressing  incident 
of  yesterday,  and  that  I  sympathize  with 
you  deeply — deeply,"  he  began. 

"It  is  your  fault,"  she  said,  turning 
from  him  and  again  gazing  into  the 
street.  "You  taught  me  everything  I  do 
not  need  in  Morovenia.  You  neglected 
the  one  essential.  I  am  not  blind.  It 
was  never  your  desire  that  I  should  be  like 
my  sister." 

She  spoke  in  a  low  monotone  and  with 
no  tinge  of  resentment,  but  her  words  had 
an  immediate  and  perturbing  effect  on 
Popova,  who  stared  at  her  wide-eyed  and 
seemed  unable  to  find  his  voice. 

"You  must  know  that  I  have  been  gov- 
erned by  your  father's  wishes,"  he  said 
awkwardly.  "Why  do  you — " 

88 


"Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  thank 
you  for  what  you  have  done.  I  would 
not  be  other  than  what  I  am.  Tell  me — 
the  stranger — you  know,  the  one  in  the 
garden — has  he  been  taken?"  inquired  the 
Princess. 

"Taken!  Taken!  Not  even  a  clue — 
not  a  trace!  Either  the  earth  opened  to 
swallow  him  or  else  Koldo  is  a  dunce. 
The  description  was  most  accurate.  By 
the  way,  I — I  had  a  most  interesting  con- 
versation regarding  the  case,  with  a 
young  man  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Europe  last 
evening.  He  is  a  person  of  great  impor- 
tance in  his  own  country,  also  a  student 
of  world-politics — I — he — never  have  I 
encountered  such  discrimination  in  one  so 
young.  It  was  because  of  my  admiration 
for  his  talents  and  my  confidence  in  his 
integrity  that  I  consented  to  deliver  a 
message  for  him." 

89 


mam 


Kalora  squirmed  in  her  pillows,  and 
turned  eagerly  to  face  Popova. 

"A  message?  For  me?"  she  cried, 
eagerly. 

"I  will  admit  that  the  whole  proceeding 
is  most  irregular,  to  put  it  mildly.  The 
young  man  was  so  deeply  interested  in 
your  perilous  adventure  of  yesterday,  and 
so  desirous  of  felicitating  you  upon  your 
escape,  that  I  yielded  to  his  importunities 
and  promised  to  deliver  to  you  this  let- 
ter." 

He  brought  it  out  cautiously,  as  if  it 
were  loaded  with  an  explosive,  and  Ka- 
lora pounced  upon  it. 

"I  rely  upon  you  to  maintain  absolute 
secrecy  in  regard  to  my  part  in  this  unus- 
ual—" 

But  Kalora,  unheeding  him,  had  torn 
open  the  letter  and  was  reading,  as  fol- 
lows : 

90 


MY  DEAR  PRINCESS  : 

I  hope  that's  the  way  to  begin.  Something 
tells  me  that  you  would  not  stand  for  "  Your 
Majesty  "  or  any  of  these  "  Royal  Highness  " 
trimmings. 

Believe  me,  you  are  the  best  ever.  I  have  just 
had  a  talk  with  the  eminent  plain-clothes  man 
who  is  looking  for  the  burglar  that  broke  into 
the  garden  this  afternoon  and  tried  to  steal  you. 
He  read  to  me  the  description.  Say,  if  I  tried 
to  write  at  this  minute  all  of  my  present  emo- 
tions concerning  you,  I  would  burn  holes  in 
the  paper.  When  it  comes  to  turning  out  fic- 
tion, Marie  Corelli  is  not  in  the  running.  Hon- 
estly, when  Mr.  Detective  walked  into  the  hotel 
this  evening,  I  figured  it  a  toss-up  whether  I 
should  ever  see  home  and  mother  again. 

I  am  only  an  humble  steel-maker,  but  I  am 
for  you  and  I  want  to  see  you  again  and  tell  you 
right  to  your  face  what  I  think  of  you.  If  you 
will  sort  of  happen  to  be  in  the  garden  at  4 
p.  m.  to-morrow  (Thursday),  I  will  come  over 
the  wall  at  the  very  spot  I  picked  out  to-day. 
I  know  that  this  method  of  becoming  acquainted 
with  young  women  is  not  indorsed  by  the  Ladies9 

91 


TESL1 


Home  Journal  or  Beatrice  Fairfax,  but,  as  near- 
ly as  I  can  find  out,  there  is  no  other  way  in 
which  I  can  get  into  society  over  here. 

So  far  as  the  bloodhounds  of  the  law  are  con- 
cerned, don't  give  them  a  thought.  I  have  met 
the  great  Koldo,  and  he  won't  know  until  about 
next  Sunday  that  yesterday  was  Tuesday.  The 
professor  has  promised  to  bring  a  reply  to  the 
hotel.  He  is  not  on. 

Sincerely, 
YOUR  GERMAN  FRIEND. 

She  read  it  all  and  found  herself  gasp- 
ing— surprised,  frightened,  and  moved  to 
a  fluttering  delight.  She  had  thought  of 
him  as  skulking  in  byways,  of  concealing 
his  name  and  attempting  to  disguise  him- 
self so  that  he  might  dodge  through  the 
meshes  woven  by  the  invincible  Koldo, 
and  here  he  was,  still  flaunting  himself  at 
the  hotel  and  calmly  preparing  to  repeat 
his  hazardous  experiment. 


TE.S11 


"He  is  a  fool! "  she  exclaimed,  forget- 
ting that  Popova  was  present. 

"I  trust  the  message  has  not  offended 
you,"  said  the  tutor,  decidedly  alarmed 
at  her  agitation  and  not  understanding 
what  it  meant. 

"I  tell  you  he  is  a  fool— a  fool!"  she 
repeated.  And  while  Popova  wondered, 
she  sprang  to  her  feet  and  ran  to  him  and 
gave  him  a  muscular  embrace  around  the 
tender  portion  of  his  neck,  for  he  still 
squatted  after  the  oriental  manner,  even 
though  he  wore  a  long  black  coat  of  Ger- 
man make. 

"I  consented  to  bring  it  because  he  was 
most  urgent,  and  seemed  a  proper  sort  of 
person,"  began  Popova,  "and  not  know- 
ing the  contents — 

"Bless  you,  I  am  not  offended,"  inter- 
rupted Kalora,  and  then,  looking  at  the 


93 


letter  again,  she  burst  into  happy  laugh- 
ter. 

The  young  stranger  was  unquestion- 
ably a  fool.  She  had  not  dreamed  that 
any  one  could  be  so  reckless  and  heed- 
less, so  contemptuous  of  the  dread  ma- 
chinery of  the  law,  so  willing  to  risk  his 
very  life  for  the  sake  of — of  seeing  her 
again ! 

"If  he  has  been  impertinent,  possibly 
you  will  take  no  notice  of  his  communica- 
tion," suggested  Popova. 

"Oh,  I  must — I  must  at  least  acknow- 
ledge the  receipt  of  it.  Common  courtesy 
demands  that.  I  shall  write  just  a  few 
lines  and  you  must  take  them  to  him  at 
once.  He  seems  to  be  a  very  forward 
person  unacquainted  with  our  local  cus- 
toms, and  so  I  shall  formally  thank  him 
and  suggest  to  him  that  any  further 
correspondence  would  be  inadvisable. 
94 


TOSH 


That's  the  really  proper  thing  to  do,  don't 
you  think?" 

"Possibly." 

"Then  wait  here  until  I  have  written  it, 
and  unless  you  wish  me  to  go  to  my  father 
and  tell  him  something  that  would  put  an 
end  to  your  illustrious  career,  deliver  this 
message  within  a  hour — deliver  it  your- 
self. Give  it  to  him  and  to  no  one  else.'* 

Never  was  a  go-between  more  non- 
plussed, but  he  promised  with  a  readiness 
and  a  sincerity  which  indicated  that  he 
was  keenly  aware  of  the  fact  that  Kalora 
held  him  in  her  power.  The  minx  had 
read  his  secret  without  an  effort! 

Mr.  Pike  was  waiting  in  the  avenue  of 
potted  palms  when  the  greatest  scholar 
of  southeastern  Europe,  now  reduced  to 
the  humble  role  of  messenger  boy,  came 
to  him,  somewhat  flurried  and  breathless, 
95 


and  slipped  a  small  envelope  into  his 
hand. 

Popova  rather  curtly  refused  to  renew 
his  acquaintance  with  occidental  fizzes,  and 
waited  only  until  he  had  announced  to  Mr. 
Pike  that  the  Princess  wished  to  empha- 
size the  advice  contained  in  the  letter  and 
to  assure  the  presumptuous  stranger  that 
it  was  meant  for  his  welfare. 

This  is  what  Mr.  Pike  read: 

My  very  good  friend: 

I  have  protected  you,  not  because  you  deserve 
protection,  but  because  I  like  you  very  much. 
You  must  not  come  to  the  palace  grounds  again. 
They  are  now  under  double  guard  and,  if  I  at- 
tempted to  meet  you,  no  doubt  a  whole  company 
of  our  big  soldiers  would  surround  you  and 
surely  you  could  not  overcome  so  many  power* 
ful  men.  I  am  thinking  only  of  your  safety. 
I  beg  you  to  leave  Morovenia  at  once.  Your 
danger  is  greater  than  you  can  imagine.  What 
more  can  I  say,  except  that  I  shall  always  re- 
member you?  Sincerely, 
96  'K. 


TOSLI 


Mr.  Pike  read  it  carefully  three  times 
And  then  told  himself  aloud  that  it  was 
not  what  he  would  precisely  term  a  love- 
letter. 

"I  may  have  made  an  impression,  but 
certainly  not  a  ten-strike,"  he  thought  to 
himself,  as  he  folded  up  the  missive  and 
put  it  into  the  most  sacred  compartment 
of  his  Russia-leather  pocketbook,  along 
with  the  letter  of  credit. 

"I  fear  me  that  the  incident  is  closed,'* 
he  said.  "I  would  stay  here  one  year  if 
I  thought  there  was  a  chance  of  seeing 
her  again,  but  if  she  wants  me  to  fly  I 
guess  I  had  better  fly." 

That  evening,  after  an  earnest  contro- 
versy with  the  manager  over  a  very  com- 
plicated bill,  studded  with  "extras,"  Mr. 
Alexander  H.  Pike,  accompanied  by 
dragoman,  leather  trunks,  hat-boxes  and 
hold-alls,  drove  away  to  the  transconti- 
97 


nental  express,  and  slept  soundly  while 
crossing  the  dangerous  frontier. 

Possibly  he  would  not  have  slept  so 
soundly  if  he  had  known  that  at  four 
o'clock  that  afternoon  the  Princess  Kalora 
had  been  idling  her  time  in  the  palace 
garden,  walking  back  and  forth  near  the 
high  wall. 

She  had  told  him  not  to  come,  and  of 
course  he  would  not  come.  No  one 
could  be  so  audacious  and  foolhardy  as  to 
invite  destruction  after  being  solemnly 
warned — and  yet,  if  he  did  come,  she 
wanted  to  be  there  to  speak  to  him  again 
and  rebuke  him  and  tell  him  not  to  come 
a  third  time. 

She  went  back  to  her  apartment  much 
relieved  and  intensely  disappointed. 

Such  is  the  perverseness  of  the  femi- 
nine nature,  even  in  Morovenia. 


98 


IX 

AS   TO   WASHINGTON,   D.    C. 

About  the  time  that  Mr.  Pike  arrived 
in  Vienna,  and  after  Kalora  had  been  in 
voluntary  retirement  for  some  forty- 
eight  hours,  the  famous  Koldo,  head  of 
the  secret  police,  came  into  possession  of 
a  most  important  clue. 

Having  searched  for  two  days,  without 
finding  the  trail  of  the  criminal  with  the 
black  mustache  and  the  German  accent, 
he  bethought  himself  of  the  wisdom  of 
going  to  the  garden  where  the  intruder 
had  engaged  in  a  desperate  struggle  with 
the  two  guards.  Possibly  he  would  dis- 
cover incriminating  footprints.  Instead, 
he  found  some  scraps  of  paper,  with  print- 
ing of  a  foreign  character. 
99 


By  questioning  the  guards  he  learned 
that  these  tatters  had  come  from  a  printed 
book  which  the  mysterious  stranger  had 
carried,  and  which  he  never  relinquished 
even  while  reducing  his  foes  to  insensi- 
bility. 

Koldo  put  these  pieces  of  paper  into  a 
strong  envelope,  which  he  sealed  and 
marked  "Exhibit  A,"  and  delivered  his 
precious  find  to  the  Governor- General. 

While  Mr.  Pike  sat  in  Ronacher's  at 
Vienna,  watching  a  most  entertaining 
vaudeville  performance,  Count  Selim 
Malagaski  was  in  his  library,  conferring 
with  the  wise  Popova. 

"How  did  he  escape?"  asked  Count 
Malagaski  again  and  again,  shaking  his 
head.  "The  police  have  searched  every 
corner  of  the  town,  and  can  find  no  one 
answering  the  description.7* 

"Have  you  questioned  Kalora  again?" 
100 


THLSLIM 


"Yes,  and  she  now  U'eihemberS'that  he 
had  a  very  heavy  scar  t>ver'  Mfci  i*i gUt  £^re. 
Her  description  and  these  few  scraps  of 
paper  torn  from  the  book  he  was  carry- 
ing are  all  that  we  have  to  guide  us  in 
our  search." 

The  Governor-General  held  up  the 
several  remnants  of  a  ten-cent  magazine. 

"It  is  in  English;  I  read  it  badly." 

He  gave  the  torn  pages  to  the  old  tu- 
tor, and  Popova,  picking  up  the  first,  read 
as  follows: 

What  is  the  great  danger  that  threatens  the 
American  woman?  It  is  obesity.  It  is  well 
known  that  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  all  the  wom- 
en in  the  United  States  are  striving  to  reduce 
their  weight.  For  all  such  we  have  a  message 
of  hope.  Write  to  Madam  Clarissa  and 
she 

"The  remainder  is  torn  away,"  said 
Popova. 

101 


TESL1 


The  Governor- General  had  been  lean- 
ing f  crw^rfl,  listening  intently.  "Do  you 
mean  to  say  that  there  is  a  country  in 
which  all  the  woman  are  fat?"  he  asked. 

"It  would  seem  so,"  replied  Popova. 
"Let  us  read  further."  He  picked  up  an- 
other of  the  torn  pages  and  read  aloud : 

To  the  Catena  Company  of  Pine  Creek,  Michi- 
gan: 

When  I  began  using  your  wonderful  health- 
food  I  was  a  mere  skeleton.  I  have  been  living 
on  it  for  three  months  and  I  have  gained  a 
pound  a  day.  Permit  me  to  express  the  con- 
viction that  you  are  real  benefactors  to  the  hu- 
man race.  Gratefully  yours, 

OSCAR  TILBURY, 
Oakdale,  Arkansas. 

"Stop!"  exclaimed  the  Governor- Gen- 
eral, striking  the  table.  "Is  it  possible 
that  somewhere  in  this  world  there  is  a 
food  which  will  add  a  pound  a  day?" 

"The  testimonial  seems  genuine,"  re- 

102 


plied  Popova.     "It  has  been  sworn  to  be- 
fore a  notary." 

"What  country  is  this?" 
"America,  the  land  of  milk  and  honey." 
"Both  very  fattening,"  commented  the 
Governor-General.  "Popova,  I  have  an 
inspiration.  You  well  know  that  my  sit- 
uation here  is  most  desperate.  I  must 
find  husbands  for  these  two  daughters, 
but  I  dare  not  hope  that  any  one  will 
come  for  Kalora  until  the  disgraceful 
affair  has  been  forgotten  and  I  can  ab- 
solutely demonstrate  that  she  has  devel- 
oped into  some  degree  of  attractiveness. 
It  is  better  for  all  concerned  that  she 
should  leave  Morovenia  until  the  present 
scandal  blows  over.  Now,  why  not 
America?  It  is  a  remote,  half -savage 
country,  and  she  will  be  far  from  the 
temptations  which  would  beset  her  at  any 
fashionable  capital  in  Europe.  We  read 

103 


TKSL1M 


in  this  magazine  that  all  the  women  in 
America  are  fat.  She  will  come  back  to 
us  in  a  little  while  as  plump  as  a  par- 
tridge. From  the  sworn  testimonial  it 
would  appear  that  she  can  obtain  in 
America  a  marvelous  food  which  will 
cause  her  to  gain  a  pound  a  day.  She 
now  weighs  one  hundred  and  eighteen 
pounds.  If  she  remained  there  a  year 
she  would  weigh,  let  me  see — one  hundred 
and  eighteen  plus  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five — oh,  that  doesn't  seem  possible! 
That  is  too  good  to  be  true!  But  even 
six  months,  or  only  three  months,  would 
be  sufficient.  She  must  be  sent  away  for 
a  while,  in  the  care  of  some  one  who  will 
guard  her  carefully.  Read  up  on  Amer- 
ica to-night,  and  let  me  know  all  about  it 
in  the  morning." 

Next  day  Popova,  having  consulted  all 
the  British  authorities  at  hand,  reported 

104 


that  the  United  States  of  America  cov- 
ered a  large  but  undeveloped  area,  that 
the  population  was  so  engrossed  with  the 
accumulation  of  wealth  that  it  gave  little 
heed  to  pleasures  or  intellectual  relaxa- 
tion, and  that  the  country  as  a  whole  was 
unworthy  of  consideration  except  as  the 
abode  of  a  swollen  material  prosperity. 

"Just  the  place  for  her,"  exclaimed  the 
Governor-General.  "No  pleasures  to  dis- 
tract her,  an  atmosphere  of  plodding 
commercialism,  an  abundance  of  health- 
giving  nourishment!  Perhaps  the  mere 
change  of  climate  will  have  the  desired 
effect.  We  will  make  the  experiment. 
She  is  doomed  if  she  remains  here,  and 
America  seems  to  be  our  only  hope.  I 
suppose  our  beloved  Monarch  sends  a 
minister  to  that  country.  If  so,  commu- 
nicate with  the  Secretary  of  the  Legation 
and  request  him  to  secure  secluded  apart- 

105 


ments  for  her  and  a  suite.  You  shall  ac- 
company her." 

"I?"  exclaimed  Popova,  unable  to  con- 
ceal his  joy. 

"Yes;  she  must  be  under  careful  re- 
straint all  the  time.  What  is  the  capital 
of  the  United  States?" 

"Washington.  It  is  a  sleepy  and  well- 
behaved  town.  I  have  looked  it  up." 

"Good!  You  shall  take  her  to  Wash- 
ington. If  one  of  the  many  civil  wars 
should  break  out,  or  there  should  be  an 
uprising  of  the  red  men,  she  can  hurry  to 
the  protection  of  the  Turkish  Embassy. 
Let  us  make  immediate  preparations — 
and  remember,  Popova,  that  my  wrhole 
future  happiness  as  a  father  depends  up- 
on the  success  of  this  expedition." 

When  Kalora  was  gravely  informed  by 
her  father  that  she  and  the  tutor  and  a 
half-dozen  female  attendants  were  to  be 
106 


bundled  up  and  sent  away  to  America, 
and  that  she  was  to  do  penance,  take  a 
dieting  treatment,  and  come  back  in  due 
time  to  try  and  atone  for  her  unfortunate 
past,  did  she  weep  and  beg  to  be  allowed 
to  remain  at  her  own  dear  home?  No;  she 
listened  in  apparently  meek  and  rather 
mournful  submission,  and,  after  her 
father  went  away,  she  turned  handsprings 
across  the  room. 

Her  utmost  dream  of  happiness  had 
been  realized.  She  was  to  go  to  the  land 
of  the  red-headed  stranger  where  she 
would  be  admired  and  courted,  and  where, 
in  time,  she  might  aspire  to  the  ultimate 
honor  of  having  her  picture  in  a  ten-cent 
magazine. 


107 


ON    THE    WING 

The  train  rolled  away  from  the  low  and 
dingy  station  and  was  in  the  open  country 
of  Morovenia.  Kalora  and  her  elderly 
guardian  and  the  young  women  who  were 
to  be  her  companions  during  the  period 
of  exile  had  been  tucked  away  into  ad- 
joining compartments.  Each  young  wo- 
man was  muffled  and  veiled  according  to 
the  most  discreet  and  orthodox  rules. 

Popova's  bright  red  fez  contrasted 
strangely  with  his  silvering  hair,  but  no 
more  strangely  than  did  this  wondrous  ex- 
perience of  starting  for  a  new  world  con- 
trast with  the  quiet  years  that  he  had  spent 
among  his  books. 

The  train   sped  into  the   farm-lands. 

108 


IE  SLIM 


On  either  side  was  a  wide  stretch  of  har- 
vest fields,  heaving  into  gentle  billows, 
with  here  and  there  a  shabby  cluster  of 
buildings.  If  Kalora  had  only  known, 
Morovenia  was  very  much  like  the  far- 
away America,  except  that  Morovenia 
had  not  learned  to  decorate  the  hillsides 
with  billboards. 

At  last  she  was  to  have  a  taste  of  free- 
dom! No  father  to  scold  and  plead;  no 
much-superior  sister  to  torment  her  with 
reproaches;  no  peering  through  grated 
windows  at  one  little  rectangle  of  outside 
sunshine.  To  be  sure,  Popova  had  re- 
ceived explicit  and  positive  instructions 
concerning  her  government.  But  Pop- 
ova — pshaw! 

She  unwound  her  veil  and  removed  her 
head-gear  and  sat  bareheaded  by  the  car- 
window,  greedily  welcoming  each  new  pic- 
ture that  swung  into  view. 
109 


IE  SLIM 


"You  must  keep  your  face  covered 
while  we  are  in  public  or  semi-public 
places,"  said  Popova  gently,  repeating  his 
instructions  to  the  very  letter. 

"I  shall  not." 

Thus  ended  any  exercise  of  Popova's 
authority  during  the  whole  journey. 

Before  the  train  had  come  to  Budapest 
all  the  young  women,  urged  on  to  insub- 
ordination, had  removed  their  veils,  and 
Kalora  had  boldly  invaded  another  com- 
partment to  engage  in  rapt  and  feverish 
dialogue  with  a  little  but  vivacious 
Frenchwoman. 

Two  hours  out  from  Vienna,  the  tutor 
found  her  involved  in  a  business  confer- 
ence with  a  guard  of  the  train.  She  had 
learned  that  the  tickets  permitted  a  stop- 
over in  Vienna.  She  wished  to  see  Vi- 
enna. She  had  decided  to  spend  one 
whole  day  in  Vienna, 
no 


TESLI 


Popova,  as  usual,  made  a  feeble  show 
of  maintaining  his  authority,  but  he  was 
overruled. 

Count  Selim  Malagaski,  at  home,  con- 
sulting the  prearranged  schedule,  said, 
"This  morning  they  have  arrived  in  Paris 
and  Popova  is  arranging  for  the  steam- 
ship tickets.'' 

At  which  very  moment,  Kalora  was  in 
an  open  carriage  driving  from  one  Vienna 
shop  to  another,  trying  to  find  ready-made 
garme.nts  similar  to  those  worn  by  Mrs. 
Rawley  Plumston.  Popova  was  now  a 
bundle-carrier. 

The  shopping  in  Vienna  was  merely  a 
prelude  to  a  riotous  extravagance  of  time 
and  money  in  Paris.  Popova,  writing 
under  dictation,  sent  a  message  to  Moro- 
venia  to  the  effect  that  they  had  been 
compelled  to  wait  a  week  in  order  to  get 
comfortable  rooms  on  a  steamer, 
ill 


TESLi 


Kalora  had  the  dressmakers  working 
night  and  day. 

She  and  her  mother  and  her  grand- 
mother and  her  great-grandmother  and 
the  whole  line  of  maternal  ancestors 
had  been  under  suppression  and  had 
attired  themselves  according  to  the  di- 
rections of  a  religious  Prophet,  who  had 
been  ignorant  concerning  color  effects. 
And  yet,  now  that  Kalora  had  escaped 
from  the  cage,  the  original  instinct  as- 
serted itself.  The  love  of  finery  can  not 
be  eliminated  from  any  feminine  species. 

When  she  boarded  the  steamer  she  was 
outwardly  a  creature  of  the  New  World. 

From  the  moment  of  embarking  she 
seemed  exhilarated  by  the  salt  air  and  the 
spirit  of  democracy. 

She  lingered  in  New  York — more  shop- 
ping. 

By  the  time  she  arrived  at  Washington 

112 


and  went  breezing  in  to  call  upon  a  certain 
dignified  young  Secretary,  the  transfor- 
mation was  complete.  She  might  not 
have  been  put  together  strictly  according 
to  mode,  but  she  was  learning  rapidly,  and 
willing  to  learn  more  rapidly. 


113 


XI 

AN    OUTING— A    REUNION 

The  Secretary  of  the  Legation  at 
Washington  was  surprised  to  receive  a  let- 
ter from  the  Governor- General  of  Moro- 
venia  requesting  him  to  find  apartments 
for  the  Princess  Kalora  and  a  small 
retinue.  The  letter  explained  that  the 
Governor- General's  daughter  had  been 
given  a  long  sea-voyage  and  assigned  to  a 
period  of  residence  within  the  quiet 
boundaries  of  Washington,  in  the  hope 
that  her  health  might  be  improved 

The  Secretary  looked  up  the  list  of  ho- 
tels and  boarding-houses.  He  did  not 
deem  it  advisable  to  send  a  convalescent 
to  one  of  the  large  and  busy  hotels; 
neither  did  he  think  it  proper  to  reserve 


rooms  for  her  at  an  ordinary  boarding- 
house,  where  she  would  sit  at  the  same 
table  with  department-employees  and  con- 
gressmen. So  he  compromised  on  a  very 
exclusive  hotel  patronized  by  legislators 
who  had  money  of  their  own,  by  many  of 
the  titled  attaches  of  the  embassies,  and  by 
families  that  came  during  the  season  with 
the  hope  of  edging  their  way  into  official 
society.  He  explained  to  the  manager  of 
the  hotel  that  the  Princess  Kalora  was  an 
invalid,  would  require  secluded  apart- 
ments, and  probably  would  not  care  to 
meet  any  of  the  other  persons  living  at 
the  hotel. 

Within  a  week  after  the  rooms  had 
been  reserved  the  invalid  drove  up  to  the 
Legation  to  thank  the  Secretary  for  his 
kindness.  Now,  the  Secretary  had  lived 
in  modern  capitals  for  many  years,  was 
trained  in  diplomacy,  and  had  schooled 

115 


IttSLi 


himself  never  to  appear  surprised.  But 
the  Princess  Kalora  fairly  bowled  him 
over.  He  had  pictured  her  as  a  wan  and 
waxen  creature,  who  would  be  carried  to 
the  hotel  in  a  closed  carriage  or  ambu- 
lance, there  to  recline  by  the  windowside 
and  look  out  at  the  rustling  leaves.  He 
had  decided,  after  hours  of  deliberation, 
that  the  etiquette  of  the  situation  would 
be  for  some  member  of  the  Legation  to 
call  upon  her  about  once  a  week  and  take 
flowers  to  her. 

And  here  was  the  invalid,  bounding  out 
of  a  coupe,  tripping  up  the  front  steps 
and  bursting  in  upon  him  like  an  untamed 
Amazon  from  the  prairies  of  Nebraska. 
She  wore  a  tailor-made  suit  of  dark  ma- 
terial, a  sailor  hat,  tan  gloves  with  big 
welts  on  the  back  and  stout,  low-heeled 
Oxfords.  This  was  the  young  woman 


116 


IE  si 


who  had  come  five  thousand  miles  to  im- 
prove her  health!  This  was  the  child  of 
the  Orient,  and  in  the  Orient,  woman  is  a 
hothouse  flower.  This  was  the  timid 
young  recluse  to  whom  the  soft-spoken 
diplomats  were  to  carry  a  few  roses  about 
once  a  week. 

Why  had  she  called  upon  the  Secre- 
tary? First,  to  thank  him  for  having  en- 
gaged the  rooms;  second,  to  invite  him 
to  take  her  out  to  a  country  club  and  teach 
her  the  game  of  golf.  She  had  heard 
people  at  the  hotel  talking  about  golf. 
The  game  had  been  strongly  commended 
to  her  by  a  congressman's  daughter,  with 
whom  she  had  ascended  to  the  top  of  the 
Washington  Monument. 

When  the  Secretary,  having  recovered 
his  breath,  asked  if  she  felt  strong 
enough  to  attempt  such  a  vigorous  game, 


she  was  moved  to  silvery  laughter.  She 
told  what  she  had  accomplished  during 
three  short  days  in  Washington.  She 
had  attended  two  matinees  with  Popova, 
had  gone  motoring  into  the  Virginia  hills, 
had  inspected  all  the  public  buildings,  and 
studied  every  shop-window  in  Pennsyl- 
vania Avenue.  The  Secretary  knew  that 
all  this  outdoor  freedom  was  not  usually 
accorded  a  young  woman  of  his  native 
domain,  and  yet  he  felt  that  he  had  no  au- 
thority to  restrain  her  or  correct  her. 
She  was  a  princess,  and  he  was  relatively 
a  subordinate,  and,  when  she  requested 
him  to  take  her  to  the  country  club,  he 
gave  an  embarrassed  consent. 

"You  have  been  in  America  a  long 
time?"  she  asked. 

"About  three  years." 

"You  have  met  many  people — that  is, 
the  important  people?" 

118 


THE  SLIM 


"All  of  them  are  important  over  here. 
Those  that  are  not  very  wealthy  or  very 
eminent  are  getting  ready  to  be." 

"I  am  wondering  if  you  could  tell  me 
something  about  a  young  man  I  met 
abroad.  I  met  him  only  once,  and  I  have 
quite  forgotten  his  name." 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't  met  him." 

"He  is  rather  good-looking  and  has — 
well,  red  hair;  not  rusty  red,  but  a  sort 
of  golden  red." 

"There  are  millions  of  red-haired  young 
men  in  America." 

"Please  don't  discourage  me.  Now  I 
remember  the  name  of  his  home.  He 
lived  in  Pennsa — Pennsylvania,  that's  it." 

"Pennsylvania  is  about  four  times  as 
large  as  Morovenia." 

"But  he  is  very  wealthy.  He  talked 
as  if  he  had  come  into  millions." 

"I  can  well  believe  it.  The  millionaires 
119 


TESLIM 


of  Pennsylvania  are  even  as  the  sands  of 
the  sea  or  the  leaves  of  the  forest." 

"He  owns  some  sort  of  mills  or  factor- 
ies— where  they  make  steel." 

"Every  millionaire  in  Pennsylvania  has 
something  to  do  with  steel.  Now,  if  you 
were  searching  in  that  state  for  a  young 
man  who  is  penniless  and  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  steel  industry,  possibly  I 
might  be  of  some  service  to  you.  The 
whole  area  of  Pennsylvania  is  simply  in- 
fested with  millionaires.  Not  all  of  them 
are  red-headed,  but  they  will  be,  before 
Congress  gets  through  with  them." 

This  playful  lapse  into  the  American 
vernacular  was  quite  lost  upon  the  Prin- 
cess Kalora,  who  was  sitting  very  still  and 
gazing  in  a  most  disconsolate  manner  at 
the  Secretary. 

"I  felt  sure  that  you  could  tell  me  all 
about  him,"  she  said. 
120 


TIE  SLIM 


"Believe  me,  if  I  encounter  any  young 
millionaire  from  Pennsylvania,  whose  hair 
is  golden-red,  I  shall  put  detectives  on  his 
trail  and  let  you  know  at  once.  You  met 
him  abroad?" 

"At  a  garden  party  in  Morovenia." 

"Indeed!  Garden  parties  in  Moro- 
venia! And  yet  that  is  not  one-half  as 
surprising  as  to  find  you  here  in  Wash- 
ington." 

"You  are  not  displeased  to  find  me 
here?" 

"Charmed— delighted." 

"And  you  will  take  me  to  the  country 
club?" 

"At  any  time.  It  will  really  give  me 
much  pleasure." 

"I  shall  drop  a  note.     Good-by." 

He  stood  at  the  window  to  watch  her  as 
she  nimbly  jumped  into  the  coupe  and 
was  driven  away. 

121 


That  evening  he  made  a  most  astonish- 
ing report  to  his  intimates  of  the  corps 
and  asked: 

"What  shall  I  do?" 

"Do  you  feel  competent  to  take  charge 
of  her  and  regulate  her  conduct?" 

"I  do  not." 

"Have  you  instructions  to  watch  her 
and  make  sure  that  she  observes  the  eti- 
quette and  keeps  within  the  restrictions  of 
her  own  country  while  she  is  visiting  in 
Washington?" 

"Nothing  of  the  sort." 

"From  your  first  interview  with  her,  do 
you  believe  that  it  would  be  advisable  for 
any  of  us  to  attempt  to  interfere  with  her 
plans?" 

"Decidedly  not." 

"Then  take  her  to  the  country  club  and 
teach  her  the  game  of  golf,  and  remember 
the  old  saying  at  home,  that  no  man  was 
122 


ever  given  praise  for  attempting  to  gov- 
ern another  man's  family." 

So  it  was  settled  that  the  Legation 
would  not  attempt  any  supervision  of  Ka- 
lora's  daily  program.  And  it  was  a  very 
wise  decision,  for  the  daily  program  was 
complicated  and  the  Legation  would  have 
been  kept  exceedingly  busy. 

Popova  became  merely  a  sort  of  foot- 
man, or  modified  chaperon.  He  knew 
that  he  had  no  real  authority  and  seldom 
attempted  even  the  most  timid  suggestions 
as  to  her  conduct.  Once  or  twice  he  men- 
tioned health- food  and  dieting,  and  was 
pooh-poohed  into  a  corner.  As  for  the 
women  attendants,  who  had  been  sent 
along  that  they  might  be  the  companions 
of  the  Princess  during  the  long  hours  of 
loneliness  and  seclusion,  they  were  trained 
to  act  as  hair-dressers  and  French  maids 
and  repairing  seamstresses! 

123 


Kalora  had  money  and  a  title  and  phys- 
ical attractions.  Could  she  well  escape 
the  gaieties  of  Washington?  Be  assured 
that  she  made  no  effort  to  escape  them. 
She  followed  the  busy  routine  of  dinners 
and  balls,  receptions  and  afternoon  teas, 
her  childish  enthusiasm  never  lagging. 
She  could  play  at  golf  and  she  seemed  to 
know  horseback  riding  the  first  time  she 
tried  it,  and  after  the  first  two  weeks  she 
drove  her  own  motor-car. 

The  letters  that  went  back  to  Moro- 
venia  were  fairly  dripping  with  superla- 
tives and  happy  adjectives.  She  was 
delighted  with  Washington;  she  was  in 
excellent  health;  the  members  of  the  Le- 
gation were  very  thoughtful  in  their  at- 
tentions ;  the  autumn  weather  was  all  that 
could  be  desired;  her  apartments  at  the 
hotel  were  charming.  In  fact,  her  whole 
life  was  rose-colored,  but  never  a  word  of 

124 


real  news  for  her  anxious  father  and  sis- 
ter— nothing  about  gaining  a  pound  a 
day.  The  Governor- General  hoped  from 
the  encouraging  tone  of  the  letters  that 
she  was  quietly  housed,  out  in  the  borders 
of  some  primeval  forest,  gradually  en- 
larging into  the  fullness  of  perfect 
womanhood. 

About  three  months  after  her  depart- 
ure, in  order  to  reassure  himself  regarding 
the  progress  in  her  case,  he  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  minister  at  Washington.  He  told 
the  minister  that  his  child  was  disposed  to 
be  unruly  and  that  Popova  had  become 
careless  and  somewhat  indefinite  in  his  re- 
ports— and  would  he,  the  minister,  please 
write  and  let  an  anxious  parent  know  the 
actual  weight  of  Princess  Kalora? 

The  minister  resented  this  manner  of 
request.  He  did  not  feel  that  it  was 
within  the  duties  of  a  high  official  to  go 

125 


HE  SLIM 


out  and  weigh  young  women,  so  he  replied 
briefly  that  he  knew  no  way  of  ascertaining 
the  exact  weight  of  an  acrobatic  young 
woman  who  never  stood  still  long  enough 
to  be  weighed,  but  he  could  assure  the 
father  that  she  was  somewhat  slimmer  and 
more  petite  than  when  she  arrived  in 
Washington  a  few  weeks  before. 

This  letter  slowly  traveled  back  to 
Morovenia,  and  on  the  very  day  of  its  de- 
livery to  Count  Selim  Malagaski,  who 
read  it  aloud  and  then  went  into  a  froth- 
ing paroxysm  of  rage,  the  Princess 
Kalora  in  Washington  figured  in  a  most 
joyful  episode. 

A  western  millionaire,  who  had  bought 
a  large  cubical  palace  on  one  of  the  radiat- 
ing avenues,  was  giving  a  dancing-party, 
to  which  the  entire  blue  book  had  been 
invited.  Kalora  went,  trailed  by  the 
long-suffering  Popova.  She  wore  her 

126 


IULSL1 


most  fetching  Parisian  gown,  and  decked 
herself  out  with  wrought  jewelry  of 
quaint  and  heavy  design,  which  was  the 
envy  of  all  the  other  young  women  in 
town,  and  she  put  in  a  very  busy  night, 
for  she  danced  with  army  officers,  and 
lieutenants  of  the  navy,  and  one  senator, 
and  goodness  knows  how  many  half- 
grown  diplomats. 

At  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  she  was 
in  the  supper-room :  a  fairly  late  hour  for 
a  young  woman  supposed  to  be  leading  a 
quiet  life.  The  food  set  before  her  would 
not  have  been  prescribed  for  a  tender 
young  creature  who  was  dieting.  She 
was  supping  riotously  on  stuffed  olives. 
Her  companion  was  a  young  gentleman 
from  the  army.  They  sat  beneath  a  huge 
palm.  The  tables  were  crowded  together 
rather  closely. 

She  chanced  to  look  across  at  the  little 
127 


table  to  her  right,  and  she  saw  a  young 
man — a  young  man  with  light  hair  almost 
ripe  enough  to  be  auburn. 

With  a  smothered  "Oh!"  she  dropped 
the  olive  poised  between  her  fingers,  and 
as  she  did  so,  he  looked  across  and  saw  her 
and  exclaimed: 

"Well,  111  be—" 

He  came  over,  almost  upsetting  two 
tables  in  his  impetuous  course.  She  ex- 
pected to  see  him  jump  over  them. 

He  seized  her  hand  and  gazed  at  her  in 
grinning  delight,  and  the  young  gentle- 
man from  the  army  went  into  total  eclipse. 


128 


XII 

THE    GOVERNOR    CABLES 

"I  don't  believe  it.  It's  too  good  to  be 
true.  I  am  in  a  trance.  It  isn't  you,  is 
it?" 

And  he  was  still  holding  her  hand. 

"Yes— it  is." 

"The  Princess— ah— ?" 

"Kalora." 

"That's  it.  I  was  so  busy  thinking  of 
you  after  I  left  your  cute  little  country 
that  I  couldn't  remember  the  name.  I 
thought  of  'calico'  and  Tedora'  and  cKo- 
komo'  and  a  lot  of  names  that  sounded 
like  it,  but  I  knew  I  was  wrong.  Kalora 
— Kalora — I'll  remember  that.  I  knew  it 
began  with  a  *K.'  But  what  in  the  name 
of  all  that  is  pure  and  sanctified  are  you 
doing  in  the  land  of  the  free?" 
129 


"You  invited  me  to  come.  Don't  you 
remember?  You  urged  me  to  come." 

"That's  why  you  notified  me  as  soon  as 
you  arrived,  isn't  it?  How  long  have  you 
been  here?" 

"I  forget — three  months — four  months. 
Surely  you  have  seen  my  name  in  the 
papers.  Every  morning  you  may  read  a 
full  description  of  what  Princess  Kalora 
of  Morovenia  wore  the  night  before.  For 
a  simple  and  democratic  people  you  are 
rather  fond  of  high-sounding  titles,  don't 
you  think?" 

"I  haven't  read  the  papers,  because  I'm 
always  afraid  I'll  find  something  about 
myself.  They  don't  describe  my  cos- 
tumes, however.  They  simply  say  that  I 
am  trying  to  blow  up  and  scuttle  the  ship 
of  State.  But  this  has  nothing  to  do  with 
your  case.  It  is  customary,  when  you  ac- 
cept an  invitation,  to  let  the  host  know 

130 


mOT  T1U 
SLi 


something  about  it.  In  other  words,  why 
didn't  you  drop  me  a  line?" 

"I  will  confess — the  whole  truth — since 
you  have  been  candid  enough  to  admit 
that  you  had  forgotten  my  name.  I  tried 
to  find  you,  through  the  Legation.  I  de- 
scribed you,  but — your  name — please  tell 
me  your  name  again?  You  mentioned  it, 
that  day  in  the  garden.  Popova  promised 
to  go  to  the  hotel  and  get  it  for  me,  but 
we  were  bundled  away  in  such  a  hurry." 

"Heavens!  Imagine  any  one  forget- 
ting such  a  name!  Alexander  H.  Pike, 
Bessemer,  Pennsylvania,  tariff- fed  infant 
and  all-round  plutocrat." 

"Why,  of  course,  Pike,  Pike — it  is  the 
name  of  a  fish." 

"Thank  you." 

The  young  gentleman  from  the  army 
moved  uneasily,  and  they  remembered 
that  he  was  present.  He  hoped  they 

131 


wouldn't  mind  if  he  went  to  look  up  his 
partner  for  the  next  dance,  and  they  as- 
sured him  that  they  wouldn't,  and  he  be- 
lieved them  and  was  backing  away  when 
Popova  arrived  to  suggest  the  lateness  of 
the  hour  and  intimate  his  willingness  to 
return  to  the  hotel. 

His  sudden  journey  to  the  western 
hemisphere  and  his  period  of  residence  at 
Washington  had  been  punctuated  with 
surprises,  but  the  amazement  which  smote 
him  when  he  saw  Kalora  leaning  across 
the  table  toward  the  young  man  who  had 
introduced  the  gin  fizz  into  Morovenia 
was  sudden  and  shocking. 

Mr.  Pike  greeted  him  rapturously  and 
gave  him  the  keys  to  North  America,  and 
then  Kalora  patted  him  on  the  arm  and 
sent  him  away  to  wait  for  her. 

They  sat  and  talked  for  an  hour — sat 
and  talked  and  laughed  and  pieced  out 

132 


between  them  the  wonderful  details  of 
that  very  lively  day  in  Morovenia. 

"And  you  have  come  all  the  way  to 
Washington,  D.  C.,  in  order  to  increase 
your  weight?"  he  asked.  "That  cer- 
tainly would  make  a  full-page  story  for 
a  Sunday  paper.  Think  of  anybody's 
coming  to  Washington  to  fatten  up! 
Why,  when  I  come  down  here  to  regulate 
these  committees,  I  lose  a  pound  a  day." 

"I  never  dreamed  that  there  could  be 
a  country  in  which  women  are  given  so 
much  freedom — so  many  liberties." 

"And  what  we  don't  give  them,  they 
take — which  is  eminently  correct.  Of  all 
the  sexes,  there  is  only  one  that  ever 
made  a  real  impression  on  me." 

"And  to  think  that  some  day  I  shall 
have  to  return  to  Morovenia!" 

"Forget  it,"  urged  Mr.  Pike,  in  a  low 
and  soothing  tone.  "Far  be  it  from  me 

133 


TESLI 


to  start  anything  in  your  family,  but  if 
I  were  you,  I  would  never  go  back  there 
to  serve  a  life  sentence  in  one  of  those 
lime-kilns,  with  a  curtain  over  my  face. 
You  are  now  at  the  spot  where  woman 
is  real  superintendent  of  the  works,  and 
this  is  where  you  wrant  to  camp  for  the 
rest  of  your  life." 

"But  I  can  not  disobey  my  father.  I 
dare  not  remain  if  he — " 

She  paused,  realizing  that  the  talk  had 
led  her  to  dangerous  ground,  for  Mr. 
Pike  had  dropped  his  large  hand  on  her 
small  one  and  v/as  gazing  at  her  with 
large  devouring  eyes. 

"You  won't  go  back  if  I  can  help  it," 
he  said,  leaning  still  nearer  to  her.  "I 
know  this  is  a  little  premature,  even  for 
me,  but  I  just  want  you  to  know  that 
from  the  minute  I  looked  down  from  the 
wall  that  day  and  saw  you  under  the 

134 


TESL1 


tree — well,  I  haven't  been  able  to  find 
anything  else  in  the  world  worth  looking 
at.  When  I  met  you  again  to-night,  I 
didn't  remember  your  name.  You  didn't 
remember  my  name.  What  of  that? 
We  know  each  other  pretty  well — don't 
you  think  we  do?  The  way  you  looked 
at  me,  when  I  came  across  to  speak  to 
you — I  don't  know,  but  it  made  me  be- 
lieve, all  at  once,  that  maybe  you  had 
been  thinking  of  me,  the  same  as  I  had 
been  thinking  of  you.  If  I'm  saying 
more  than  I  have  a  right  to  say,  head  me 
off,  but,  for  once  in  my  life,  I'm  in  earn- 
est." 

"I'm  glad — you  like  me,"  she  said,  and 
she  pushed  back  in  her  chair  and  looked 
down  and  away  from  him  and  felt  that 
her  face  was  burning  with  blushes. 

"When  you  have  found  out  all  about 
me,  I  hope  you'll  keep  on  speaking  to  me 

135 


just  the  same,"  he  continued.  "I  warn 
you  that,  from  now  on,  I  am  going  to 
pester  you  a  lot.  You'll  find  me  sitting 
on  your  front  door-step  every  morning, 
ready  to  take  orders.  To-morrow  I  must 
hie  me  to  New  York,  to  explain  to  some 
venerable  directors  why  the  net  earnings 
have  fallen  below  forty  per  cent.  But 
when  I  return,  O  fair  maiden,  look  out 
for  me." 

He  would  be  back  in  Washington 
within  three  days.  He  would  come  to 
her  hotel.  They  were  to  ride  in  the  motor, 
car  and  they  were  to  go  to  the  theaters. 
She  must  meet  his  mother.  His  mother 
would  take  her  to  New  York,  and  there 
would  be  the  opera,  and  this,  and  that, 
and  so  on,  for  he  was  going  to  show  her 
all  the  attractions  of  the  Western  Hemis- 
phere. 

The  night  was  thinning  into  the  gray- 

136 


ness  of  dawn  when  he  took  her  to  the 
waiting  carriage.  She  put  her  hand 
through  the  window  and  he  held  it  for  a 
long  time,  while  they  once  more  went  over 
their  delicious  plans. 

After  the  carriage  had  started,  Popova 
spoke  up  from  his  dark  corner. 

"I  am  beginning  to  understand  why 
you  wished  to  come  to  America.  Also 
I  have  made  a  discovery.  It  was  Mr. 
Pike  who  overcame  the  guards  and 
jumped  over  the  wall." 

"I  shall  ask  the  Governor-General  to 
give  you  Koldo's  position." 

An  enormous  surprise  was  waiting  for 
them  at  the  hotel.  It  was  a  cable  from 
Morovenia — long,  decisive,  definite,  com- 
posed with  an  utter  disregard  for  heavy 
tolls.  It  directed  Popova  to  bring  the 
shameless  daughter  back  to  Morovenia 
immediately — not  a  moment's  delay  un- 
137 


der  pain  of  the  most  horrible  penalties 
that  could  be  imagined.  They  were  to 
take  the  first  steamer.  They  were  to 
come  home  with  all  speed.  Surely  there 
was  no  mistaking  the  fierce  intent  of  the 
message. 

Popova  suffered  a  moral  collapse  and 
Kalora  went  into  a  fit  of  weeping.  Both 
of  them  feared  to  return  and  yet,  at  such 
a  crisis,  they  knew  that  they  dared  not 
disobey. 

The  whole  morning  was  given  over  to 
hurried  packing-up.  An  afternoon  train 
carried  them  to  New  York.  A  steamer 
was  to  sail  early  next  day,  and  they  went 
aboard  that  very  night. 

Kalora  had  left  a  brief  message  at  her 
hotel  in  Washington.  It  was  addressed 
to  Mr.  Alexander  H.  Pike,  and  simply 
said  that  something  dreadful  had  hap- 
pened, that  she  had  been  called  home,  that 

138 


she  was  going  back  to  a  prison  the  doors 
of  which  would  ne^er  swing  open  for  her, 
and  she  must  say  good-by  to  him  for  ever. 

She  tried  to  communicate  with  him  be- 
fore sailing  away  from  New  York. 
Messenger  boys,  bribed  with  generous 
cab- fares,  were  sent  to  all  the  large  hotels, 
but  they  could  not  find  the  right  Mr. 
Pike.  The  real  Mr.  Pike  was  living  at 
a  club. 

She  leaned  over  the  railing  and 
watched  the  gang-plank  until  the  very 
moment  of  sailing,  hoping  that  he  might 
appear.  But  he  did  not  come,  and  she 
went  to  her  state-room  and  tried  to  for- 
get him,  and  to  think  of  something 
other  than  the  reception  awaiting  her 
back  in  the  dismal  region  known  as 
Morovenia. 


1S9 


XIII 

THE    HOME-COMING 

The  Governor-General  waited  in  the 
main  reception-room  for  the  truant  expe- 
dition. He  was  hoping  against  hope. 
Orders  had  been  given  that  Popova,  Ka- 
lora  and  the  whole  disobedient  crew 
should  be  brought  before  him  as  soon  as 
they  arrived.  His  wrath  had  not  cooled, 
but  somehow  his  confidence  in  himself 
seemed  slowly  to  evaporate,  as  it  came 
time  for  him  to  administer  the  scolding— 
the  scolding  which  he  had  rehearsed  over 
and  over  in  his  mind. 

He  heard  the  rolling  wheels  grit  on  the 
drive  outside,  and  then  there  was  mur- 
muring conversation  in  the  hallway,  and 
then  Kalora  entered.     His  most  dread- 
no 


IE  SLIM 


ful  suspicions  were  ten  times  confirmed. 
She  wore  no  veil  and  no  flowing  gown. 
She  was  tightly  incased  in  a  gray  cloth 
suit,  and  there  was  no  mistaking  the  pre- 
sence of  a  corset  underneath.  On  her 
head  was  a  kind  of  Alpine  hat  with  a 
defiant  feather  standing  upright  at  one 
side.  Before  her  father  had  time  to 
study  the  details  of  this  barbaric  costume, 
he  sat  staring  at  her  as  she  was  silhou- 
etted for  an  instant  between  him  and  the 
open  window. 

Merciful  Mahomet!  She  was  as  lean 
and  supple  as  an  Austrian  race-horse! 

He  could  say  nothing.  She  ran  over 
and  gave  him  a  smack  on  the  forehead 
and  then  said  cheerily: 

"Well,  popsy,  here  I  am!  What  do 
you  think  of  me?" 

While  Count  Selim  Malagaski  was 
holding  to  his  chair  and  trying  to  sort  out 

141 


from  the  limited  vocabulary  of  Moro- 
venia  the  words  that  could  express  his 
boiling  emotions,  he  saw  Popova  stand- 
ing shamefaced  in  the  doorway.  Was  it 
really  Popova?  The  tutor  wore  a  trav- 
eling-suit with  large  British  checks,  a 
blue  four-in-hand,  and,  instead  of  a  fez, 
a  rakish  cap  with  a  peak  in  front.  As 
he  edged  into  the  room  the  young  women 
attendants  filed  timidly  behind  him. 
Horror  upon  horrors!  They  were  in 
shirt-waists,  with  skirts  that  came  tightly 
about  the  hips,  and  every  one  of  them 
wore  a  chip  hat,  and  not  one  of  them  was 
veiled ! 

The  Governor-General  tried  to  steady 
himself  in  order  to  meet  this  unprece- 
dented crisis. 

"So  this  is  how  you  have  managed  my 
affairs?"  he  said  in  angry  tones  to  the 
trembling  Popova. 

142 


"What  is  the  meaning  of  this  shocking 
exhibition?" 

"Don't  blame  him,  father,"  spoke  up 
Kalora.  "I  am  responsible  for  whatever 
has  happened.  We  have  seen  something 
of  the  world.  We  have  learned  that 
Morovenia  is  about  two  hundred  years 
behind  the  times.  They  knew  that  you 
would  not  approve,  but  I  have  compelled 
them  to  have  the  courage  of  their  convic- 
tions. You  can  see  for  yourself  that  we 
no  longer  belong  here.  There  is  but  one 
thing  for  you  to  do,  and  that  is  to  send 
us  away  again." 

"No!"  exclaimed  her  father,  banging 
his  fist  on  the  table,  and  then  coming  to 
his  feet.  "You  shall  remain  here — all  of 
you — and  be  punished!  You  have  ru- 
ined your  own  prospects;  you  have  con- 
demned your  poor  sister  to  a  life  of  single 
misery,  and  you  have  made  your  father 

143 


THE  SLIM 


the  laughing-stock  of  all  Morovenia!  If 
I  can  not  reform  you  and  make  you  a 
dutiful  child,  at  least  I  can  make  an  ex- 
ample of  you !" 

"Stop!"  she  said  very  sharply.  "Let 
us  not  have  an  unfortunate  scene  in  the 
presence  of  the  servants.  If  you  have 
anything  to  say  to  me,  send  them  away, 
and  remember  also,  father,  I  have  certain 
rights  which  even  you  must  respect. 
Also,  I  have  a  great  surprise  for  you.  I 
am  beautiful.  Hundreds  of  young  men 
have  told  me  so.  Under  no  circum- 
stances would  I  permit  myself  to  become 
large  and  gross  and  bulky.  You  are  dis- 
heartened because  no  young  man  in 
Morovenia  wishes  to  marry  me.  Bless 
you,  there  isn't  a  young  man  in  this  coun- 
try worth  marrying!" 

"Young  woman,  you  have  taxed  my 


144 


TIE  SUM 


patience  far  beyond  the  limit,"  said  her 
father,  speaking  low  in  an  effort  to  con- 
trol his  wrath.  "Hereafter  you  shall 
never  go  beyond  the  walls  of  this  palace ! 
You  shall  be  a  waiting-maid  for  your  sis- 
ter! The  servants  shall  be  instructed  to 
treat  you  as  a  menial — one  of  their  own 
class!  These  shameless  women  are  dis- 
missed from  my  service!  As  for  you" — 
turning  upon  the  old  tutor — "y°u  shall 
be  put  away  under  lock  and  key  until  I 
can  devise  some  punishment  severe  enough 
to  fit  your  case !" 

That  night  Kalora  slept  on  a  hard  and 
narrow  cot  in  a  bare  apartment  adjoining 
her  sister's  gorgeous  boudoir — quite  a 
change  from  the  suite  overlooking  the 
avenue. 

The  shirt-waist  brigade  had  been  sent 
into  banishment,  and  poor  Popova  was 
sitting  on  a  wooden  stool  in  a  dungeon, 

145 


thinking  of  the  dinners  he  had  eaten  at 
Old  Point  Comfort  and  wondering  if  he 
had  not  overplayed  himself  in  the  effort 
to  be  avenged  upon  the  Governor- Gen- 
eral. 


146 


XIV 

HEROISM    REWARDED 

A  month  later  Popova  was  still  in 
prison,  and  had  demonstrated  that  even 
after  one  has  lunched  for  several  months 
at  the  Shoreham,  the  New  Willard  and 
the  Raleigh,  he  may  subsist  on  such  sim- 
ple fare  as  bread  and  water. 

Kalora  had  been  humiliated  to  the  ut- 
termost, but  her  spirit  was  unbroken  and 
defiant. 

She  was  nominally  a  servant,  but  Je- 
neka  and  the  others  dared  not  attempt 
any  overbearing  attitude  toward  her,  for 
they  feared  her  sharp  and  ready  wit. 

The  fires  of  inward  wrath  seemed  to 
have  reduced  her  weight  a  few  pounds, 
147 


mffT  HI 
SUM 


so  that  if  ever  a  man  faced  a  situation  of 
unbroken  gloom,  that  man  was  the  poor 
Cover  nor- General. 

Count  Malagaski  sat  in  the  large,  over- 
decorated  audience  room,  alone  with  his 
sorrowful  meditations.  An  attendant 
brought  him  a  note. 

"The  man  is  at  the  gate,"  said  the  at- 
tendant. "He  started  to  come  in.  We 
tried  to  keep  him  out.  He  pushed  three 
of  the  soldiers  out  of  the  way,  but  we 
finally  held  him  back,  so  he  sends  this 
note." 

A  few  lines  had  been  written  in  pencil 
on  the  reverse  side  of  a  typewritten  busi- 
ness letter.  The  Governor- General  could 
speak  English,  but  he  read  it  rather  badly, 
so  he  sent  for  his  secretary,  who  told  him 
that  the  note  ran  as  follows : 

You  don't  know  me  and  there  is  no  need  to 
give  my  name.     Must  see  you  on  important  mat- 
148 


mOT  11  f 
SUM 


ter  of  business.     Something  in  regard  to  your 
daughter. 

"Great  Heavens,  another  one!"  said 
the  Governor-General.  "There  are  one 
thousand  young  men  ready  and  willing 
to  marry  Jeneka  and  not  one  in  all  the 
world  wants  Kalora.  Send  him  away!" 

"I  am  afraid  he  won't  go,"  suggested 
the  attendant.  "He  is  a  very  positive 
character." 

"Then  send  him  in  to  me.  I  can  dis- 
pose of  his  case  in  short  order." 

A  few  moments  later  Count  Selim 
Malagaski  found  himself  sitting  face  to 
face  with  a  ruddy  young  man  in  a  blue 
suit — a  square-shouldered,  smiling  young 
gentleman,  with  hair  of  subdued  auburn. 

"I  take  it  that  you're  a  busy  man  and 

I'll  come  to  the  point,"  said  the  young 

man,  pulling  up  his  chair.     "I  try  to  be 

business  from  the  word  go,  even  in  mat- 

149 


man 


ters  of  this  kind.     You  have  a  daughter." 
"I   have   two   daughters,"   replied  the 
Governor- General  sadly. 

"You  have  only  one  that  interests  me. 
I  have  been  around  a  good  deal,  but  she 
is  about  the  finest  looking  girl  I — " 

"Before  you  say  any  more,  let  me  ex- 
plain to  you,"  said  the  Governor- General 
very  courteously.  "Perhaps  you  are  not 
entitled  to  this  information,  but  you  seem 
to  be  a  gentleman  and  a  person  of  some 
importance,  and  you  have  done  me  the 
honor  to  admire  my  daughter,  and,  there- 
fore, it  is  well  that  you  should  know  all 
the  facts  in  the  case.  I  have  two  daugh- 
ters. One  is  exceedingly  beautiful  and 
her  hand  has  been  sought  in  marriage  by 
young  men  of  the  very  first  families  of 
Morovenia,  notably  Count  Luis  Mul- 
dova,  who  owns  a  vast  estate  near  the 
Roumanian  frontier.  I  have  another 

150 


TIE  SLIM 


daughter  who  is  decidedly  unattractive, 
so  much  so  that  she  has  never  had  an 
offer  of  marriage.  I  am  telling  you  all 
this  because  it  is  known  to  all  Moro- 
venia,  and  even  you,  a  stranger,  would 
have  learned  it  very  soon.  Under  the  law 
here,  a  younger  sister  may  not  marry  until 
the  elder  sister  has  married.  My  unat- 
tractive daughter  is  the  elder  of  the  two. 
Do  you  see  the  point?  Do  you  under- 
stand, when  you  come  talking  of  a  mar- 
riage with  my  one  desirable  daughter,  that 
not  only  are  you  competing  with  all  the 
wealthy  and  titled  young  men  of  this 
country,  but  also  you  are  condemned  to 
sit  down  and  patiently  wait  until  the  elder 
sister  has  married, — which  means,  my 
dear  sir,  that  probably  you  will  wait  for 
ever?  Therefore  I  think  I  may  safely 
wish  you  good  day." 

"Hold  on,  here,"  said  the  visitor,  who 

151 


IE  SLIM 


had  been  listening  intently,  with  his  eyes 
half-closed,  and  nodding  his  head  quickly 
as  he  caught  the  points  of  the  unusual  sit- 
uation. "If  I  can  fix  it  up  with  you  and 
daughter — and  I  don't  think  I'll  have  any 
trouble  with  daughter — what's  the  matter 
with  my  rustling  around  and  finding  a 
good  man  for  sister?  There  is  no  reason 
why  any  young  woman  with  a  title  should 
go  into  the  discard  these  days.  At  least 
we  can  make  a  try.  I  have  tackled  prop- 
ositions that  looked  a  good  deal  tougher 
than  this." 

"Do  you  think  it  possible  that  you  could 
find  a  desirable  husband  for  a  young 
woman  who  has  no  physical  charms  and 
who,  on  two  or  three  occasions,  has  scan- 
dalized our  entire  court?" 

"I  don't  say  I  can,  but  I'm  willing  to 
take  a  whirl  at  it." 


152 


"My  dear  sir,  before  we  go  any  further, 
tell  me  something  about  yourself.  You 
are  an  Englishman,  I  presume  ?" 

"Great  Scott !  You're  the  first  one  that 
ever  called  me  that.  I  have  been  called 
a  good  many  things,  but  never  an  Eng- 
lishman. I'll  have  to  begin  wearing  a 
flag  in  my  hat.  I'm  an  American." 

"American!"  gasped  the  Governor- 
General.  "I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  it.  I 
have  every  reason  for  regarding  you  and 
your  native  country  as  my  natural  ene- 


mies." 


"You're  dead  wrong.  America  is  all 
right.  The  States  size  up  pretty  well 
alongside  of  this  little  patch  of  country." 

"I  do  not  blame  you  for  being  loyal  to 
your  own  home,  sir,  but  isn't  it  rather  pre- 
sumptuous for  you,  an  American,  to  as- 
pire to  the  hand  of  a  Princess  who  could 


153 


TKSL1M 


marry  any  one  of  a  dozen  young  men  of 
wealth  and  social  position?" 

"What's  the  matter  with  my  wealth  and 
social  position?  I'm  willing  to  stack  up 
my  bank-account  with  any  other  candi- 
date. I  happen  to  be  worth  eighteen  mil- 
lion dollars." 

"Dollars?"  repeated  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral, puzzled.  "What  would  that  be  in 
piasters  ?" 

"It's  a  shame  to  tell  you.  Only  about 
four  hundred  million  piastres,  that's  all." 

"What!"  exclaimed  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral. "Surely  you  are  joking.  How 
could  one  man  be  worth  four  hundred  mil- 
lion piasters?" 

"Say,  if  you'll  give  me  a  pencil  and 
a  pad  of  paper  and  about  a  half -day's 
time,  I'll  figure  out  for  you  what  Henry 
Frick  is  worth  in  piasters  and  then  you 
would  have  a  fit.  Why,  in  the  land  of 

154 


mOT  Tlf 
SUM 


ready  money  I'm  only  a  third-rater,  but 
I've  got  the  four  hundred  million,  all 
right." 

"But  have  you  any  social  position?" 
asked  the  Governor- General.  "Any  rank? 
Any  title?  Over  here  those  things  count 
for  a  great  deal." 

"I  am  Grand  Exalted  Ruler  of  the  Be- 
nevolent and  Protective  Order  of  Elks,'" 
said  the  visitor  calmly. 

"Really!" 

"I  am  a  Knight  Templar." 

"A  knight?  That  is  certainly  some- 
thing." 

"Do  you  see  this  badge  with  all  the 
jewels  in  it?  That  means  that  I  am  a 
Noble  of  the  Mystic  Shrine." 

"I  can  see  that  it  is  the  insignia  of  a 
very  distinguished  order,"  said  the  Gov- 
ernor-General, as  he  touched  it  admir- 
ingly. 

155 


"What  is  more,  I  am  King  of  the  Hoo- 
Hoos." 

"A  king?" 

"A  sure-enough  king.  Now,  don't  you 
worry  about  my  wealth  or  my  title.  I've 
got  money  to  burn  and  I  can  travel  in  any 
company.  The  thing  for  us  to  do  is  to 
get  together  and  find  a  good  husband 
for  the  cripple,  and  fix  up  this  whole 
marriage  deal.  But  before  we  go  into  it 
I  want  to  meet  your  daughter  and  find  out 
exactly  how  I  stand  with  her." 

"That  will  be  unnecessary,  and  also  im- 
possible. Whatever  arrangements  you 
make  with  me  may  be  regarded  as  final. 
My  daughter  will  obey  my  wishes." 

"Not  for  mine!  I  am  not  trying  to 
marry  any  girl  that  isn't  just  as  keen  for 
me  as  I  am  for  her.  Why,  I've  seen  her 
only  twice.  Let  me  talk  it  over  with  her, 
and  if  she  says  yes,  then  you  can  look  me 

156 


up  in  Bradstreet  and  we'll  all  know  where 
we  stand." 

"I  am  sorry,  but  it  is  absolutely  con- 
trary to  our  customs  to  permit  a  private 
interview  between  an  unmarried  woman 
and  her  suitor." 

"Whereas  in  our  country  it  is  the  most 
customary  thing  in  the  world !  Now,  why 
should  we  observe  the  customs  of  your 
country  and  disregard  the  customs  of  my 
country,  which  is  about  forty  times  as 
large  and  eighty  times  as  important  as 
your  country?  Don't  be  foolish!  I  may 
be  the  means  of  pulling  you  out  of  a  tight 
hole.  You  go  and  send  your  daughter 
here  to  me.  Give  me  ten  minutes  with 
her.  I'll  state  my  case  to  her,  straight 
from  the  shoulder,  and,  if  she  doesn't  give 
me  a  lot  of  encouragement,  I'll  grab  the 
first  train  back  to  Paris.  If  she  does  give 
me  any  encouragement,  then  you'll  see 
157 


what  can  be  accomplished  by  a  real  live 
matrimonial  agency." 

The  Governor-General  hesitated,  but 
not  for  long.  The  confident  manner  of 
the  stranger  had  inspired  him  with  the 
first  courage  that  he  had  felt  for  many 
weeks  and  revived  in  him  the  long-slum- 
bering hope  that  possibly  there  was  some- 
where in  the  world  a  desirable  husband  for 
Kalora.  He  was  about  to  violate  an  im- 
portant rule,  but  there  was  no  reason  why 
any  one  on  the  outside  should  hear  about 
it. 

"This  is  most  unusual,"  he  said.  "If 
I  comply  with  your  request,  I  must  beg 
of  you  not  to  mention  the  fact  of  this  in- 
terview to  any  one.  Remain  here." 

He  went  away,  and  the  young  man 
waited  minute  after  minute,  pacing  back 
and  forth  the  length  of  the  room,  cutting 
nervous  circles  around  the  big  office  chairs, 

158 


wiping  his  palms  with  his  handkerchief 
and  wondering  if  he  had  come  on  a  fool's 
errand  or  whether — 

He  heard  a  rustle  of  soft  garments,  and 
turned.  There  in  the  doorway  stood  a 
feminine  full  moon — an  elliptical  young 
woman,  with  half  of  her  pink  and  corpu- 
lent face  showing  above  a  gauzy  veil,  her 
two  chubby  hands  clasped  in  front  of 
her,  the  whole  attitude  one  of  massive  shy- 
ness. 

"I — I  beg  pardon,"  he  said,  staring  at 
her  in  wonder. 

She  tried  to  speak,  but  was  too  much 
flustered.  He  saw  that  she  was  smiling 
behind  the  veil,  and  then  she  came  toward 
him,  holding  out  her  hand.  He  took  the 
hand,  which  felt  almost  squashy,  and  said : 

"I  am  very  glad  to  meet  you." 

Then  there  was  a  pause. 

"Won't  you  be  seated?"  he  asked. 

159 


She  sank  into  one  of  the  leather  chairs 
and  looked  up  at  him  with  a  little  simper, 
and  there  was  another  pause. 

"I — I  never  have  seen  you  before,  have 
I?"  she  asked,  with  a  secretive  attempt  to 
take  a  good  look  at  him. 

"You  can  search  me,"  he  replied, 
staring  at  her,  as  if  fascinated  by  her 
wealth  of  figure.  "If  I  had  seen  you  be- 
fore, I  have  a  remote  suspicion  that  I 
should  remember  you.  I  don't  think  it 
would  be  easy  to  forget  you." 

"You  flatter  me,"  she  said  softly. 

"Do  I?  Well,  I  meant  every  word  of 
it.  Will  you  pardon  me  for  being  a  wee 
bit  personal?  Are  there  many  young 
ladies  in  these  parts  that  are  as — as — cor« 
pulent,  or  fat,  or  whatever  you  want  to 
call  it — that  is,  are  you  any  plumper  than 
the  average?" 

"I  have  been  told  that  I  am." 
160 


"Once  more  pardon  me,  but  have  you 
done  anything  for  it?" 

"For  what?"  she  asked,  considerably; 
surprised. 

"I  wouldn't  have  mentioned  it,  only  I 
think  I  can  give  you  some  good  tips.  I 
had  a  Cousin  Flora  who  was  troubled  the 
same  way.  About  the  time  she  went  to 
Smith  College  she  got  kind  of  careless 
with  herself,  used  to  eat  a  lot  of  candy 
and  never  take  any  exercise,  and  she  got 
to  be  an  awful  looking  thing.  If  you'll 
cut  out  the  starchy  foods  and  drink  noth- 
ing but  Kissingen,  and  begin  skipping 
the  rope  every  day,  you'll  be  surprised  how 
much  of  that  you'll  take  off  in  a  little 
while.  At  first  you  won't  be  able  to  skip 
more  than  twenty-five  or  fifty  times  a 
day,  but  you  keep  at  it  and  in  a  month 
you  can  do  your  five  hundred.  Put  on 
plenty  of  flannels  and  wear  a  sweater. 
161 


And  I'll  show  you  a  dandy  exercise.  Put 
your  heels  together  this  way," — and  he 
stood  in  front  of  her, — "and  try  to  touch 
the  floor  with  your  fingers — so!" — illus- 
trating. "You  won't  be  able  to  do  it  at 
first,  but  keep  at  it,  and  it'll  help  a  lot. 
Then,  if  you  will  lie  flat  on  your  back 
every  morning,  and  work  your  feet  up 
and  down- 
She  had  listened,  at  first  in  utter  amaze- 
ment. Now  her  timid  coquettishness  was 
giving  way  to  anger. 

"What  are  you  trying  to  tell  me?"  she 
asked. 

"It's  none  of  my  business,  but  I 
thought  you'd  be  glad  to  find  out  what'd 
take  off  about  fifty  pounds." 

"And  is  this  why  you  came  to  see  me?" 
she  demanded. 

ffl  didn't  come  to  see  you" 


162 


"My  father  said  you  were  waiting  and 
he  sent  me  to  you." 

"Sent  you"  replied  Mr.  Pike  in  frank 
surprise.  "My  dear  girl,  you  may  be 
good  to  your  folks  and  your  heart  may 
be  in  the  right  place,  and  I  don't  want  to 
hurt  your  feelings,  but  father  has  got 
mixed  in  his  dates.  I  certainly  didn't 
come  here  to  see  you" 

As  he  was  speaking  Jeneka  wriggled 
forward  in  her  chair  and  then  arose.  She 
stood  before  him,  heaving  perceptibly. 

"Your  manner  is  most  insulting,"  she 
declared.  She  had  expected  to  be  show- 
ered with  compliments,  and  here  was  this 
giggling  stranger  advising  her  to  be  thin ! 
She  toddled  over  to  the  door  and  pushed 
a  bell.  Then  she  turned  upon  the  be- 
wildered stranger  and  remarked  coldly: 
"Unless  you  have  something  further  to 


163 


communicate,  you  may  consider  this  inter- 
view at  an  end." 

A  servant  appeared  in  the  doorway. 

"Show  this  person  out,"  said  the  portly 
princess. 

The  servant  gave  a  little  scream. 

"Mr.  Pike!" 

"Kalora!" 

And  then  he  was  holding  both  her 
hands. 

"You  are  here — here  in  Morovenia? 
You  came  all  the  way?" 

"All  the  way!  I'd  have  come  ten  times 
as  far.  Before  I  left  New  York  I  heard 
about  all  those  messenger  boys  hunting 
me  around  the  hotels,  but  I  didn't  know 
what  it  meant.  When  I  got  back  to 
Washington  I  found  your  note,  and,  as 
soon  as  I  could  get  Congress  calmed 
down,  I  started — got  in  here  last  night." 

"But  why  did  you  come?" 

164 


nt  SLI 


"Can't  you  guess?"  Mr.  Pike  wasted 
no  time  in  circumlocution. 

During  this  hurried  interview  Jeneka 
had  been  holding  a  determined  thumb 
against  the  electric  button.  The  Gover- 
nor-General, waiting  impatiently  up  the 
hallway,  heard  the  prolonged  buzzing  and 
came  to  investigate.  He  found  the  ador- 
able Jeneka,  all  trembling  with  indigna- 
tion, in  the  doorway.  She  saw  him  and 
pointed.  He  looked  and  saw  the  distin- 
guished stranger,  the  man  of  many  titles 
and  unbounded  wealth,  standing  close  to 
the  slim  princess,  holding  both  her  hands 
and  beaming  upon  her  with  all  of  the  un- 
mistakable delirious  happiness  of  love's 
young  dream. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  asked  the  Gover- 
nor-General. "Is  it  possible— 

"He  was  rude  to  me,"  began  Jeneka* 
"He  was  most  insulting " 

165 


Mr.  Pike  turned  to  meet  his  prospect- 
ive father-in-law. 

"You  meant  well,  but  you  got  twisted," 
he  remarked.  "This  is  the  one  I  was 
looking  for." 

At  first  Count  Selim  Malagaski  was  too 
dumf ounded  for  speech. 

"Are  you  sure?"  he  asked.  "Can  it  be 
possible  that  you,  a  man  worth  millions  of 
piasters,  an  exalted  ruler,  a  Noble  of  the 
Mystic  Shrine,  have  deliberately  chosen 
this  waspy,  weedy " 

"Let  up!"  said  Mr.  Pike  sharply. 
"You  can  say  what  you  please  about  your 
daughter,  bu4  ^ou  mustn't  make  remarks 
about  the  prospective  Mrs.  Pike.  I  don't 
know  anything  about  her  local  reputation 
for  looks,  but  I  think  she's  the  most  beau- 
tiful thing  that  ever  drew  breath,  and  I'd 
make  it  stronger  than  that  if  I  knew  how. 


166 


You  thought  I  meant  the  fat  one.  Well, 
I  didn't,  but  I  hope  the  agreement  goes 
just  the  same.  And  I'll  stick  to  what  I 
said.  I'll  get  the  other  one  married  off. 
It  may  take  a  little  time,  but  I  think  I 
can  find  some  one." 

"Find  some  one?"  cried  Jeneka  indig- 
nantly. 

"Find  some  one?"  repeated  her  father. 
"She  has  been  sought  by  every  young 
man  of  quality  in  the  whole  kingdom. 
How  dare  you  suggest  that " 

Then  he  paused,  for  he  was  beginning 
to  comprehend  that  young  Mr.  Pike  had 
stepped  in  and  saved  him,  and  that,  in- 
stead of  rebuking  Mr.  Pike,  he  should  be 
weeping  on  his  breast  and  calling  him 


"son." 


Jeneka  came  to  her  senses  at  the  same 
moment,  for  she  saw  her  dream  of  five 


Id? 


years  coming  true.     She  knew  that  soon 
she  would  be  the  Countess  Muldova. 

Mr.  Pike  suddenly  felt  himself  caressed 
by  three  happy  mortals. 

"I  shall  make  you  a  Knight  of  the 
Gleaming  Scimitar,"  said  the  Governor- 
General.  "I  have  the  authority." 

"Thanks,"  replied  Mr.  Pike. 

"And  we  can  have  a  double  wedding, '* 
exclaimed  Jeneka,  whose  ecstasy  was  al- 
most apoplectic. 

"We  shall  be  married  in  Washington," 
said  Kalora  decisively.  "I  am  not  going 
to  be  carted  over  to  my  husband's  house 
and  delivered  at  the  back  door,  even  if  it 
is  the  custom  of  my  native  land.  I  shall 
be  married  publicly  and  have  twelve 
bridesmaids." 

"You  may  start  for  Washington  imme- 
diately," said  her  father  with  genuine  en- 
thusiasm. 

168 


"I  shall  need  a  chaperon.  Send  for 
Popova." 

"Good!  His  punishment  shall  be — 
permanent  exile." 

"Nothing  would  please  him  better," 
said  Kalora.  "Over  here  he  is  nothing — 
in  Washington  he  will  be  a  distinguished 
foreigner.  Washington !  Washington! 
To  think  that  all  of  us  are  going  back 
there!  To  think  that  once  more  I  shall 
have  pickles — all  the  pickles  I  want  to 
eat!" 

"We  have  over  fifty  varieties  waiting 
for  you,"  observed  young  Mr.  Pike  ten- 
derly. 

"I  have  been  thinking,"  spoke  up  the 
Governor-General.  "I  shall  apply  to  the 
Sultan.  He  shall  make  you  a  Most  Noble 
Prince  of  the  Order  of  Bosporus.  The 
decoration  is  a  great  star,  studded  with 
diamonds." 

169 


"Thanks,"  replied  Mr.  Pike. 

That  night  the  great  palace  at  Moro- 
venia  was  completely  illuminated  for  the 
first  time  in  many  months. 


THE  END 


IN  OUR  TOWN  - 


I 

THE    ACTOR 

EVERY  town  has  an  actor.  We  had  one. 
In  fact,  we  have  him  now — in  the  summer 
time.  Egbert  is  one  of  the  birds  that  fly 
away  in  the  autumn  and  come  fluttering 
back  in  the  spring.  Several  times  he  has 
come  back  before  spring.  Lost  his  job? 
Certainly  not.  He  is  either  "  resting  or 
reorganizing."  As  soon  as  he  is  thor- 
oughly rested  and  altogether  reorganized 
he  has  Jim  Frisby  (the  dairyman)  haul 
his  battle-scarred  trunk  down  to  the  sta- 
tion, and  away  he  goes  on  a  new  search 
for  glory.  As  nearly  as  we  can  learn — 
and  we  try  to  learn  everything  in  our 
town — one  of  the  Frohman  boys  has  sent 

for  him. 

173 


mCiT  T1U 
SUM 


His  full  name,  as  printed  on  the  trunk, 
is  Egbert  Seyon — pronounced  Say-on. 
Some  name  that.  A  good,  juicy  stage 
name  that  would  show  up  great  on  a  24- 
sheet.  Egbert  has  not  burst  into  large 
type  as  yet.  He  has  not  attained  "  stellar 
distinction,"  if  you  know  what  that  is, 
but  he  will  all  right,  all  right,  if  Robert 
Mantell  and  Otis  Skinner  will  move  over 
to  their  own  side  of  the  track  and  not  try 
to  keep  him  in  a  pocket. 

It  may  not  be  generally  known  to  the 
play-going  public,  but  Egbert  Seyon's 
real  name  is  Ed  Noyes.  Many  older  mem- 
bers of  the  I-knew-him-when  Club,  which 
was  chartered  and  organized  right  here  in 
our  town,  recall  the  fact  that  Ed  once 
delivered  milk  for  the  Simpson  Brothers' 
dairy.  It  is  hardly  fair  to  say  that  he  de- 
livered milk  once.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
he  was  allowed  to  get  out  twice.  After 

174 


each  trip  he  came  in  with  his  vest  pocket 
full  of  red  and  blue  tickets,  but  these  did 
not  add  up  enough  quarts  and  pints  to 
account  for  all  the  milk  that  had  been 
delivered.  Ed  never  could  get  the  differ- 
ence between  a  quart  and  a  pint  straight 
in  his  head.  He  was  not  dishonest,  mind 
you.  Simply  a  case  of  artistic  tempera- 
ment. For  a  good  many  years  since  then 
he  has  been  getting  the  red  tickets  mixed 
up  with  the  blue  tickets  and  giving  pints 
for  quarts,  and  that  is  why  he  lands  back 
here  along  about  cherry-picking  time  and 
visits  his  married  sister. 

It's  funny  sometimes,  how  talent  will 
slumber  in  a  small  town  and  not  be  dis- 
covered by  the  natives.  Ed  Noyes  had 
been  somewhat  of  a  reciter,  but  if  any  one 
had  predicted  that  in  time  he  would  be 
with  a  real  troupe  and  travel  from  town 
to  town  it  would  have  started  a  cackle, 

175 


sure  enough.  One  of  the  surest  ways  of 
starting  a  cackle  in  our  town  is  to  suggest 
that  possibly  some  one  born  right  here 
will  live  long  enough  to  overcome  the 
handicap.  At  "  literary  "  meetings,  Ed 
used  to  spring  that  one  about  the  Turk 
that  lay  dreaming  of  the  hour,  when 
Greece,  her  knee  in  suppliance  bent, 
should  tremble  at  his  power.  During  the 
blue-ribbon  upheaval  he  gave  us  the  piece 
about  the  young  man  in  the  open  boat 
who  refused  to  heed  the  friend  who  stood 
on  the  bank  and  shouted,  "  Young  man, 
ahoy!  The  rapids  are  below  you!  " 

It  is  one  thing  to  stand  up  in  a  cutaway 
coat  and  recite,  and  another  thing  to  act 
out  on  a  real  stage.  Ed  really  was  dis- 
covered by  the  Chicago  actor  who  came  to 
put  on  the  home  talent  show.  This  sure- 
enough  actor,  whose  name  was  Cyril  Wil- 
bur, said  that  Ed  possessed  "  histrionic 

176 


ability  of  a  very  high  order  " — those  were 
his  words. 

We  became  involved  in  amateur  theatri- 
cals because  the  band  boys  needed  some 
new  uniforms.  "  Our  Boys  in  Blue  "  was 
the  name  of  the  play.  The  plot  revolved 
rapidly  around  a  love  affair  in  which  a 
brave  Union  soldier  and  a  Confederate 
spy,  who  talked  through  his  teeth,  were 
contending  for  the  hand  of  a  heroine  who 
was  very  pale,  and  kept  saying,  "  My 
God! "  all  through  the  play,  much  to  the 
alarm  of  some  of  the  regular  church 
members. 

When  Ed  walked  out  on  the  stage  that 
night  we  didn't  know  him  at  first.  His 
eyebrows  were  very  black  and  had  been 
extended  until  they  were  shaped  like  cro- 
quet arches.  His  lips  were  cherry-red, 
and  his  cheeks  carried  the  bloom  of  youth. 
Although  he  had  just  emerged  from  battle 

177 


mni  Tif 
SUM 


he  looked  very  clean  and  natty.  Any  one 
could  tell  at  a  glance  that  he  was  a  hero. 
In  the  love  scenes  he  used  a  tremolo  of 
which  he  had  not  been  suspected  up  to  that 
time.  During  the  court-martial  scene  he 
shifted  to  the  loud  pedal,  and  when  he 
finally  denounced  his  accusers  and  de- 
clared his  allegiance  to  the  old  flag,  he 
rattled  the  chandeliers.  Children  in  arms 
became  frightened  and  had  to  be  hurried 
to  the  ante-room.  The  curtain  fell  on  an 
outburst  of  yelps  and  whistles  from  the 
boys  in  the  elevated  seats.  It  was  what 
the  paper  called  an  "  ovation."  Anyway, 
it  was  the  undoing  or  the  making  of  Ed 
Noyes,  all  depending  on  the  point  of  view. 
Next  day  he  walked  up  Main  street, 
accompanied  by  a  new  glamour.  It  was 
agreed  that  he  was  the  "  best  one  in  the 
show,"  not  excepting  the  Chicago  actor, 
who  played  the  spy.  The  court  of  last 

178 


1E.SH 


resort,  in  front  of  the  hardware  store, 
decreed  that  he  was  "  better  than  most 
regular  actors."  Ed  had  himself  photo- 
graphed in  costume  and  tried  to  appear 
unconscious  of  his  local  eminence  when 
the  school  children  walked  close  behind 
him  and  recalled,  in  loud  and  disputatious 
tones,  the  more  stirring  incidents  of  the 
drama. 

The  play  was  repeated  at  Spencerville. 
In  his  review  of  the  performance,  the  edi- 
tor over  there  said:  "The  part  of  the 
hero  was  taken  by  Mr.  Noyes,  who  more 
than  deserves  the  name  inherited  from 
his  parents."  Of  course,  you  grasp  the 
editor's  meaning:  Noyes — Noise.  It 
might  be  explained  that  Spencerville  fully 
expected  to  get  the  hub  and  spoke  factory 
that  moved  out  from  Indianapolis  to  our 
town  in  order  to  improve  the  social  condi- 

179 


IE  SLIM 


tions  surrounding  employees.     Also,  to 
get  cheaper  labor. 

I  will  say  this  for  our  town :  Although, 
as  a  rule,  we  are  ready  to  throw  dornicks 
at  any  one  within  the  corporate  limits  who 
begins  to  exhibit  hifaluting  aspirations, 
the  attack  on  Ed  Noyes  certainly  did  stir 
up  a  lot  of  feeling.  Just  because  we  got 
the  factory  was  no  reason  why  Spencer- 
ville  should  open  up  on  Ed  Noyes.  We 
hastened  to  assure  Ed  that  the  editor  was 
prejudiced,  and  the  band  boys  gave  him  a 
watch-fob.  In  our  efforts  to  soothe  him 
probably  we  laid  it  on  a  little  too  thick. 
Besides  there  was  no  need  of  working  up 
any  sympathy  for  Ed.  The  Spencerville 
criticism  never  touched  him  at  all.  He 
was  a  regular  actor  from  the  start.  He 
(was  good  and  he  knew  he  was  good,  and 
anybody  who  didn't  think  so  was  simply 

180 


to  be  pitied  for  his  ignorance  and  dropped 
into  the  discard  of  oblivion. 

Ever  since  the  first  night  in  K.  P.  Hall, 
Ed  has  been  absolutely  sure  that  he  is  a 
great  actor.  He  doesn't  think  that  he  is 
fairly  good  or  feel  reasonably  convinced 
that  he  has  traces  of  talents.  He  knows 
that  he  can  play  any  part  ever  written  bet- 
ter than  any  other  man  who  ever  walked 
out  on  a  stage.  Of  course,  when  a  man  is 
sustained  and  fortified  by  that  kind  of 
sublime  confidence,  you  may  knock  him 
down  and  walk  on  him  a  thousand  times, 
but  he  will  continue  to  bob  up  and  demand 
attention. 

Local  tradition  has  it  that  Ed  never  did 
an  honest  day's  work  after  he  made  his 
first  hit  as  "  Lieutenant  Paul  Hethering- 
ton,  nature's  nobleman."  For  a  month 
he  basked  in  the  sunlight  of  local  popular- 
ity, giving  out  photographs  and  wearing 

181 


TIE  SLIM 


his  watch-fob,  and  then  he  did  just  what 
we  knew  he  was  going  to  do — he  went 
away  with  a  traveling  troupe.  It  was  the 
Mae  Sylvester  Company,  playing  "  The 
Queen  of  the  Ranch."  Rumors  flew  thick 
and  fast  the  day  after  Ed  went  away,  but 
they  seemed  to  sift  down  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  getting  fifteen  dollars  a  week  for 
playing  an  Indian. 

He  changed  his  name  when  he  went 
with  Mae  Sylvester.  "  Egbert  "  was  cer- 
tainly an  improvement  on  Ed.  To  use  the 
name  "  Noyes  "  would  be  hanging  a  bait 
in  front  of  every  would-be  Willie  Winter 
of  the  wild  and  woolly  west.  At  the 
same  time,  he  didn't  like  to  abandon  a 
family  name  that  had  been  honored  ever 
since  the  Civil  War.  So  what  did  he  do? 
He  took  Noyes  and  spelled  it  backward 
and  got  Seyon,  which  sounds  fancy  and 

182 


TOSH 


unusual,    and    just    fits    the    end    of    a 
trunk  : 


*  EGBERT  SEYON   * 

*  Theatre          * 
********** 

He  thought  some  of  taking  Garrick  or 
Booth  and  Mansfield,  but  all  of  them  had 
been  used  before  by  other  actors.  His 
sister,  Mrs.  Rush  Thornton,  was  really 
the  one  who  suggested  "  Seyon."  She  had 
used  that  name  in  carrying  on  a  flirtatious 
correspondence  with  a  traveling  man  be- 
fore she  married  Rush,  getting  her  mail  at 
the  general  delivery.  It  seems  that  a  good 
many  of  the  girls  around  town  learned  the 
trick  of  spelling  their  names  backward  in 
order  to  mystify  the  handsome  gentlemen 
whose  names  were  taken  from  the  hotel 

183 


TESL1M 


register.  Ella  Porter  carried  on  a  daring 
intrigue  with  the  name  of  Retrop,  and 
Lulu  Robinson  called  herself  Nosnibor; 
although  it  doesn't  seem  possible  that  you 
could  fool  even  a  traveling  man  with  a 
name  like  that. 

About  a  month  after  Egbert  went  away 
with  Mae  Sylvester  he  landed  back  among 
us.  His  trunk  came  a  few  days  later. 
You  never  saw  such  a  change  in  a  man. 
He  was  paler,  for  one  thing.  He  looked 
all  the  time  as  if  he  had  just  shaved  him- 
self and  used  a  little  more  talcum  powder 
than  was  absolutely  necessary.  His  hair 
never  had  been  curly,  but  now  it  seemed  to 
kink  up  a  little  at  the  ends,  like  fish-hooks. 
He  wore  a  big  cravat  tied  in  a  loose  bow, 
and  he  talked  as  if  he  had  a  cold — not  a 
bad  cold,  but  something  slightly  bronchial, 
the  kind  preachers  have  all  the  time.  He 
carried  a  cane  with  a  metallic  knob  on  it, 

184 


IE  SLIM 


and  I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  his 
"  spats  "  were  the  first  ever  seen  in  our 
town.  We  couldn't  see  the  object  of 
spats.  They  looked  as  if  something  had 
been  slipped  down  and  was  hanging  over 
the  shoe. 

We  never  figured  out  just  what  hap- 
pened to  the  Mae  Sylvester  combina- 
tion— but  it  was  something  that  involved 
treachery  on  the  part  of  the  treasurer,  and 
non-payment  of  salaries.  Egbert,  accord- 
ing to  his  own  admission,  had  been  trium- 
phantly successful  in  the  small  part 
alloted  him.  He  had  started  a  scrap-book, 
and  I  recall  that  a  paper  in  Urbana,  Ohio, 
said:  "  Egbert  Seyon,  as  the  Indian,  was 
adequate."  This  meant  more  than  you 
might  think,  for  Egbert  explained  that 
the  critic  was  known  as  the  Alan  Dale  of 
Urbana. 

Every     Thursday     morning     Egbert 

185 


would  go  down  to  the  post-office  and  get 
a  dramatic  weekly.  He  stood  on  a  corner 
to  read  it,  and  turned  the  pages  with  a 
cold,  professional  air  of  languid  interest. 
In  August  he  cashed  a  frugal  check  signed 
by  his  brother-in-law  (we  find  out  about 
these  things  in  our  town),  and  went  to 
New  York.  Since  then  he  has  been  a  New 
Yorker.  He  puts  in  most  of  his  time  here, 
while  resting  or  reorganizing,  but  his  home 
is  New  York.  "  Egbert  Seyon,  New 
York  City,"  that's  how  it  appears  on  the 
register.  He  remains  here  for  weeks  at 
a  time,  but  somehow  we  feel  that  we  are 
holding  him  in  exile.  When  he  speaks  of 
"  little  old  New  York  "  there  is  a  note  of 
longing  in  his  voice,  and  more  than  once 
this  summer,  as  we  lined  up  in  the  arm- 
chairs along  the  front  of  the  Commercial 
Hotel,  we  have  heard  Egbert  say:  "  Gee, 
I'd  like  to  be  on  old  Broadway  to-night." 

186 


ffiSLI 


We  used  to  think  that  when  he  arrived  on 
Broadway  many  flags  were  hung  out  of 
the  windows  and  more  electric  lights  were 
turned  on,  but  some  of  the  folks  who  at- 
tended the  Hudson-Fulton  celebration  re- 
port that  they  saw  Egbert  standing  on  a 
corner  with  several  other  men  wearing  the 
same  kind  of  almost-Panamas  and  a  sort 
of  towel  instead  of  a  collar,  and  that  a 
policeman  rapped  on  a  brass  sign  and  told 
them  to  keep  moving  and  not  block  the 
street. 


187 


II 

THE    HOLD-OVER 

You  take  a  town  of  about  fifteen  hun- 
dred population,  except  in  the  census  re- 
ports, and  bear  in  mind  that  the  residents 
can  devote  anywhere  from  six  to  twenty- 
four  hours  each  day  to  comparing  notes 
and  keeping  tab  on  the  neighbors,  and  it 
is  evident  that  very  few  essential  facts  get 
by.  Boswell  knew  a  lot  about  Johnson, 
but  we  have  people  right  in  our  town 
who  know  so  much  about  other  people 
here,  that  if  they  ever  wrote  it  all  out  and 
put  it  into  a  volume,  BoswelFs  celebrated 
work  would  look  like  a  scattering  of  foot- 
notes, and  Webster's  Unabridged  Dic- 
tionary would  dwindle  to  the  comparative 

insignificance  of  a  hand-book  on  bridge- 
188 


whist.  But,  of  course,  they  never  will 
write  it  out,  because  they  can't  spare  the 
time  from  their  regular  detective  work. 

We  are  long  on  biographical  data. 
Family  skeletons  a  specialty.  We  don't 
talk  much  about  the  black  sheep  that  wan- 
dered away  into  the  underbrush,  but  we 
know  all  about  them.  We  can  give  you 
a  list  of  automobile  owners  who  have  mort- 
gaged their  homes,  and  can  tell  why 
Elmer  Wilson  gave  up  his  job  in  the  bank 
and  name  the  exact  amount  that  it  cost 
Frank  Talbot  to  get  his  son-in-law  back 
from  South  Dakota.  But  I'm  blessed  if 
even  the  most  expert  eavesdropper,  news- 
monger and  inquisitor  in  the  whole  place 
can  tell  you  the  exact  age  of  Mattie 
Buskirk. 

Mattie  does  not  claim  to  be  a  springer. 
She  blithely  refers  to  herself  as  an  "  old 

maid,"  and  provokes  laughter  at  every 
189 


wedding  by  telling  how  many  times  she 
has  caught  the  bride's  bouquet  and  then 
waited  in  vain.  Mattie  has  grown  old 
courageously,  but  the  tantalizing  truth  is 
that  no  one  can  tell  how  old  she  has  grown. 
Somebody  has  tampered  with  the  records. 
There  is  plenty  of  speculative  conversa- 
tion but  no  absolute  proof. 

In  the  evening,  with  her  hair  done  up 
in  a  certain  way  and  the  lights  striking  her 
at  the  proper  angle  from  behind,  she  looks 
to  be  about  twenty-six.  Her  friends  say 
66  somewhere  in  the  thirties."  Seven  or 
eight  married  women,  who  used  to  run 
around  with  her  before  they  were  dragged 
to  the  altar,  and  who  now  find  themselves 
seated  in  the  dim  background,  waiting  for 
the  grandchildren  to  arrive,  declare  that 
"  Mattie  is  fifty  if  she  is  a  day."  Uncle 
Jim  Trimble  testifies  that  after  the  sur- 
render of  Lee,  when  the  home  company 
190 


got  off  the  train  and  marched  from  the 
depot  to  the  grove,  Mattie  Buskirk  stood 
in  front  of  the  old  Woods  Hotel  and 
waved  at  the  troops.  She  was  young  at 
the  time,  and  wore  a  blue  dress.  Nobody 
believes  Uncle  Jim,  and  a  good  many 
doubt  the  married  women,  but  there  is  no 
concealing  the  fact  that  Mattie  is  pretty 
well  advanced  in  years  for  a  mere  girl. 

The  family  Bible  has  disappeared  and 
the  relatives  have  been  fixed.  About  as 
near  as  we  can  come  to  getting  any  real 
evidence  is  this :  It  can  be  shown  by  news- 
paper files  that  during  the  Garfield  and 
Hancock  campaign  of  1880,  Mattie  rode 
on  a  float  in  the  ratification  parade  and 
impersonated  the  Goddess  of  Liberty. 
That  was  thirty  years  ago.  Assuming  that 
a  girl  would  have  to  be  at  least  fifteen 
years  of  age  in  order  to  look  anything  like 
a  real  goddess  and  sit  on  a  high  throne 

191 


non 


surrounded  by  the  states  of  the  union,  the 
evidence  would  seem  fairly  conclusive  that 
Mattie  is  now  hovering  around  the  forty- 
five  mark.  But  if  you  ask  Mattie  about 
politics  you  will  find  that  she  has  only  a 
hazy  recollection  of  anything  preceding 
the  free-silver  crisis  of  1896.  Occasionally 
some  woman  who  knows  how  to  use  the 
stiletto  in  a  friendly  fashion  will  go  after 
Mattie  and  try  to  show  up  her  antiquity. 
For  instance,  Mrs.  Art  Beardsley,  who  is 
chief  veteran  in  division  No.  1  of  the 
Drooping  Married  Women,  spoke  up  at  a 
club  meeting  one  day  and  said:  "  Oh, 
Mattie,  will  you  ever  forget  our  trip  to 
Chicago  in  1883  to  see  Booth  and  Bar- 
rett?" 

That's  going  back  twenty-seven  years, 
all  at  one  jump.  Mattie  did  not  falter. 
She  said  she  remembered  it — that  is,  she 

remembered  being  in  a  theatre  with  lights 
192 


TESI 


and  music  and  many  people,  but  she  had 
forgotten  the  name  of  the  play. 

"Were  you  there?"  she  asked  Mrs. 
Beardsley. 

"  I  was,"  replied  Mrs.  Beardsley,  with 
as  much  frigid  dignity  as  she  could  gen- 
erate on  short  notice. 

"Of  course  you  were !  "  said  Mattie,  in 
her  most  sparkling  manner.  "  I  remem- 
her  now — I  sat  on  your  lap  all  evening." 

While  Mrs.  Beardsley  was  recovering, 
Mattie  shifted  to  a  discussion  of  Elbert 
Hubbard,  and  sailed  out  of  danger. 

Mattie  gets  a  lot  of  sympathy,  espe- 
cially from  the  men.  The  enthusiasm  of 
the  women  is  slightly  modified.  The  older 
ones,  from  whom  all  girlish  gayety  has 
evaporated  in  the  dry  atmosphere  of 
routine  married  life,  find  it  difficult  to 
derive  any  real  enjoyment  from  watching 

Mattie  carry  on  flirtatiously  with  their 
193 


husbands.    Every  middle-aged  husband  in 
town  is  more  or  less  of  an  ex-beau  to 
Mattie.     Also,  it  is  believed  that  a  man 
often  nurses   a   wistful   regard   for   the 
woman  that  he  circled  around  but  didn't 
marry.     There  is  a  might-have-been  at- 
tractiveness about  her,  especially  if  she  re- 
tains her  youthful  charm  and  makes  him 
aware  of  it  when  they  get  together  at  a 
whist  party.    Mattie  will  never  be  really 
popular  with  the  married  women  until  she 
settles  down.     As  for  the  girls  of  the 
younger  set,  they  dread  the  competition 
of  one  who  has  mastered  all  thirty-three 
degrees  of  the  mysteries  of  man-taming. 
Just  now  we  have  in  our  town  a  brood  of 
collegians.      They   come   home   in   June 
from  the  colleges  and  academies,  every  one 
of  them  trying  to  look  like  a  Yale  student 
of  the  most  devilish  type.     With  their 
undersized  hats  and  amplified  trousers, 

194 


THE  SLIM 


their  Greek-letter  badges  and  throbbing 
hosiery,  their  sun-baked  arms  and  waving 
forelocks — is  it  any  wonder  that  we  are 
fairly  proud  to  claim  them  as  our  boys? 
Well,  Mattie  rounds  them  up  just  as  she 
rounded  up  their  male  parents  several  sea- 
sons ago.  All  during  the  past  summer  her 
front  porch  probably  had  the  largest  aver- 
age attendance  of  any  in  town.  The  buds 
say  that  she  is  a  shameless  "  jollier,"  and 
the  undergraduates  themselves  poke  fun 
at  her  on  the  quiet,  but,  just  the  same, 
you  will  seldom  find  her  hammock  hang- 
ing idle  on  a  pleasant  evening. 

Does  Mattie  remain  single  from  choice? 
Was  the  romance  of  her  life  snuffed  out 
when  the  handsome  photographer  moved 
away  from  here  fifteen  years  ago?  Or  is 
it  true  that  every  man  is  just  a  little  bit 
afraid  of  the  woman  who  outpoints  him 
in  cleverness?  Does  he  shrink  from  sug- 

195 


gesting  a  partnership  in  which  he  can  see 
himself  for  all  time  acting  as  No.  2?  Or 
does  Mattie,  in  her  eagerness  to  land  them, 
reel  in  too  soon? 

These  questions  are  variously  answered. 
We  only  know  that  Mattie  began  to  have 
beaux  away  back  in  the  days  of  chignons 
and  cardboard  mottoes  and  embroidered 
hat-linings.  Her  first  devoted  caller  wore 
spring-bottom  trousers,  used  oil  on  his  hair 
and  brought  candy  conversation  hearts 
with  him  when  he  came  to  call  Sunday 
evening.  The  years  have  come  and  gone, 
and  the  new  century  has  engulfed  us  in 
bewildering  changes.  Everything  has 
changed  except  Mattie.  She  is  still  the 
most  popular  girl  in  town.  Like  Peter 
Pan  and  Sara  Bernhardt  and  H.  Rider 
Haggard's  "  She,"  our  village  belle  re- 
fused to  let  the  years  be  counted.  She  has 
lived  to  witness  the  complete  cycle  from 

196 


TIE  SUM 


the  hoop-skirt  to  the  hobhle-skirt.  Five 
years  from  now  she  will  still  be  two 
months  ahead  of  the  fashion  plates.  She 
began  with  straw  rides  and  bob-sleds  and 
moved  on  through  the  time  of  side-bar 
buggies  and  tandem  bicycles,  and  now  she 
takes  to  the  red  touring  car  with  girlish 
eagerness. 

Within  the  span  of  her  social  career  the 
square  dances  disappeared,  the  military 
schottische  and  the  polka  gave  way  to  the 
Boston  dip,  and  now  she  prefers  the  barn 
dance  to  the  two-step. 

She  has  read  her  way  up  from  Mrs. 
Southworth  to  George  Barr  McCutcheon, 
and  has  shifted  her  sheet  music  over  every 
hurdle  between  "Maggie  May  "  and  what- 
ever Nora  Bayes  happens  to  be  singing 
this  week. 

Mattie  is  adaptable — always  a  little 
ahead  of  the  parade.  That's  why  she  has 

197 


lasted  so  long.  After  all,  why  pity  her 
because  she  never  selected  one  man  from 
the  endless  procession  and  dropped  out  of 
the  game?  She  is  still  young,  if  not  alto- 
gether blooming,  apparently  cheerful  and 
still  going  on  the  third  speed. 


198 


Ill 

THE    PROVIDER 

You  have  heard  of  the  woman  who  went 
all  the  way  through  the  woods  and  then 
picked  up  a  crooked  stick.  It  is  a  sad 
case.  But  there  would  be  no  sense  in 
wasting  a  lot  of  sympathy  on  the  woman 
if,  after  picking  up  the  crooked  stick,  she 
went  serenely  happy  on  her  way,  thinking 
she  had  picked  up  a  cord  of  wood,  and 
mahogany  at  that ! 

Probably  every  one  in  our  town,  except 
Mrs.  Orville  Grigsby,  is  convinced  that 
Mrs.  Orville  Grigsby  has  a  pretty  hard 
time  of  it.  She  is  supposed  to  be  up 
against  it.  She  has  Orville  on  her  hands. 
She  calls  him  Orville,  but  most  people  call 

199 


THEM 


him  "  Orve,"  and  some  of  the  women  call 
him  a  "  big  lazy  lummox."  I  don't  know 
just  what  a  lummox  is,  and  the  name  does 
not  often  come  up  in  print,  but  whatever 
it  is  Orville  is  one  of  them. 

In  order  to  make  the  Grigsby  case  clear 
to  you,  we  will  have  to  go  back  a  little. 
Along  about  1885,  Jennie  Hinkle  was  the 
most  popular  girl  in  our  town,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Mattie  Buskirk. 
Sometimes  a  girl  has  to  pay  a  high  price 
for  being  popular. 

Either  of  these  local  queens  might  have 
sung  in  the  immortal  words  of  Henry 
Blossom: 

"  I  never  could  see  any  fun 
In  spending  all  my  time  on  one." 

In    other   words,    they    were    fussers. 
They  were  entirely  surrounded  by  mem- 
bers of  the  opposite  sex.     In  doing  the 
200 


grand-right-and-left  through  the  mazy 
dance  of  youth  it  was  only  natural  that 
they  should  change  partners  occasionally. 
Jennie  and  Mat  tie  could  welcome  the  com- 
ing and  speed  the  parting  guest  with  all 
the  professional  skill  of  an  experienced 
college  widow.  Both  of  them  pursued 
this  exciting  pastime  until  they  came  to 
be  classed  as  syndicate  attractions  and  not 
subject  to  private  ownership.  As  a  re- 
sult, Mattie  is  still  our  principal  fusser 
and  Jennie  is  supporting  Orville  Grigsby. 

Any  woman  who  lived  in  our  town 
twenty  years  ago  can  sit  down  and,  by 
some  counting  on  her  fingers,  and  squint- 
ing, and  looking  up  into  the  air,  give  you 
the  names  of  twenty  men  who  wanted  to 
marry  Jennie  Hinkle. 

One  name  in  the  list  will  surprise  you, 
because  even  you  folks  who  live  in  the  big 

towns  have  heard  of  him.     If  our  burg 
201 


IE  Mi 


ever  gets  on  a  real  map  it  will  be  on  ac- 
count of  James  K.  Wellaby,  vice-presi- 
dent and  something-or-other  of  the  B.  L. 
&  K.  railway.  He  was  born  right  here, 
attended  our  public  schools  and  learned  to 
be  a  telegraph  operator  in  the  old  depot 
that  is  now  used  as  a  freight  station. 
After  he  got  to  be  an  agent  and  was  pull- 
ing down  $45  a  month,  he  aspired  to  the 
hand  of  Jennie  Hinkle  and  scored  the  only 
failure  of  his  meteoric  career.  He  was 
called  away  and  promoted  to  the  general 
offices,  and  then  promoted  to  something 
else,  and  so  on,  until  it  seemed,  from  the 
news  coming  back  to  us,  that  Jim  was 
kept  pretty  busy  resigning  jobs  and  ac- 
cepting bigger  ones.  Nobody  around  here 
ever  picked  Jim  for  a  coming  Napoleon, 
but  now  that  he  has  made  good  we  claim 
him  as  our  kith  and  kin.  Two  years  ago 

he  came  through  here  in  his  special  car. 
202 


IE  SLIM 


It  was  like  the  last  chapter  of  a  Sunday 
School  story-book — the  poor  but  honest 
country  lad  returning  to  his  dear  old  home 
as  a  Great  Business  Man.    We  have  sent' 
a  good  many  up  to  the  city.    Some  came    \ 
back  in  box  cars  and  some  never  came     \ 
back  at  all.    Jim  is  the  only  one  who  ever      / 
returned  in  a  varnished  car  a  half  block     / 
long  with  three  Ugandas  to  wait  on  him.  / 

His  visit  helped  to  remind  us  of  the 
appalling  fact  that  if  Jennie  Hinkle  had 
said  "  Yes  "  instead  of  laughing  and  run- 
ning away,  she  would  now  have  a  large 
stone  house  with  an  iron  fence  around  it, 
ride  in  a  padded  limousine,  and  be  order- 
ing gowns  and  jewels  instead  of  oatmeal 
and  prunes.  For,  if  you  must  know  the 
whole  truth,  Jennie  is  now  conducting  a 
boarding-house  in  order  to  permit  Orville 
to  live  in  the  manner  to  which  he  had  not 
been  accustomed. 

203 


If  ever  a  woman  had  a  right  to  brood 
over  her  might-have-been  history  and 
carry  through  years  of  silent  suffering  a 
great  and  aching  grief  that  woman  is  Mrs. 
Orville  Grigsby,  nee  Jennie  Hinkle,  as 
the  editor  of  the  "  Advocate "  would 
put  it. 

A  good  many  women  draw  blanks,  but 
some  blanks  are  bigger  than  others.  If 
there  could  be  any  grading,  probably  Or- 
ville would  be  classed  as  the  capital  prize 
among  the  blanks.  He  is  a  33rd  degree 
blank,  while  the  ordinary  squaw  man  is 
only  the  Blue  Lodge.  If  the  non-work- 
ing husbands  who  wear  boiled  shirts  and 
eat  heartily  three  times  a  day  ever  form  a 
national  organization  in  order  to  protect 
their  rights  and  keep  down  competition, 
Orville  will  be  elected  president  by  ac- 
clamation. 

He  is  everything  that  a  professional 

204 


husband  should  be.  A  prima  donna's  hus- 
band has  a  fairly  soft  job,  but  then  he  has 
to  buy  the  sleeping-car  tickets,  and,  be- 
sides, he  is  expected  to  watch  the  show 
every  night  and  applaud  at  the  right  time. 
The  designing  wretch  who  weds  the 
homely  heiress  gets  his  punishment,  for  he 
has  to  sit  up  nights  and  count  money. 
But  there  are  no  drawbacks  to  Orville's 
job.  He  has  no  set  and  regular  duties 
except  to  continue  to  be  the  husband  of 
Mrs.  Grigsby,  wear  his  dark  suit  with  the 
onyx  sleeve-buttons  and  discuss  with  other 
learned  minds  the  question  as  to  whether 
or  not  T.  R.  can  come  back. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  that  Orville 
lacks  a  vocation.  He  is  a  solicitor  of  life 
insurance  and  has  printed  cards,  fur- 
nished by  the  company,  to  prove  it.  When 
Jennie  Hinkle  packed  him  up  years  ago 
and  took  him  in  and  gave  him  room  and 

205 


ffiSLI 


board  for  life,  he  was  acting  as  agent  for 
a  nursery.  Any  one  desiring  fruit  trees 
could  get  them  by  hunting  up  Orville  and 
compelling  him  to  take  the  order.  After 
that  he  had  the  county  rights  for  a  patent 
churn  that  looked  like  a  pianola  and  was 
so  beautifully  polished  up  and  had  so 
many  flowers  painted  on  it  that  the  ordi- 
nary farmer  didn't  feel  worthy  of  asso- 
ciating with  it.  He  has  been  a  real  estate 
agent,  off  and  on,  for  fifteen  years.  In 
order  to  be  a  real  estate  agent  in  our  town 
all  you  have  to  do  is  to  get  a  map  of  the 
county  and  put  a  card  in  the  "  Advocate." 
A  man  can  be  a  real  estate  agent  and  a 
solicitor  of  insurance,  holding  down  both 
places  simultaneously,  and  yet  have  all  his 
time  to  himself.  In  looking  back  over 
Orville's  career,  it  will  be  discovered  that 
he  never  undertook  any  employment  that 
required  him  to  be  at  a  certain  place  at  a 

206 


certain  time.  Of  course,  his  service  as  a 
juryman  has  been  rather  confining,  but, 
inasmuch  as  he  is  a  regular  at  all  trials 
anyway,  his  willingness  to  take  pay  for 
listening  to  the  testimony  is  really  a 
tribute  to  his  business  judgment. 

It  is  reported  that  if  he  can  get  some 
one  to  demonstrate  for  him,  he  will  be  an 
automobile  agent  next  summer. 

Orville  will  do  anything  that  does  not 
involve  physical  exertion,  sustained  men- 
tal effort  or  the  observance  of  business 
hours.  He  cannot  afford  to  let  sordid 
commercial  considerations  come  between 
him  and  the  croquet  tournaments  of  the 
golden  summer  time,  or  the  checker  con- 
tests that  enliven  the  dull  winter  season. 
He  will  sit  on  the  sharp  edge  of  a  one-inch 
board  for  two  hours  to  watch  a  ball  game. 
Also,  he  will  act  as  presiding  judge  at  a 
quoit  game,  referee  a  horse  trade,  or  go 

207 


TO  si 


fishing.    He  is  never  idle,  but  he  refuses 
to  work,  if  you  can  get  the  distinction. 

Life  has  settled  to  a  pleasant  routine 
for  him.  He  leaves  the  house  at  7:30 
every  morning,  after  Jennie  has  looked 
him  over  and  dusted  him  off  and  squared 
the  ends  of  his  bow  tie.  He  proceeds 
along  Third  Street  slowly  but  with  dig- 
nity, toward  Hitchcock's  drug  store.  His 
mien  is  thoughtful  and  he  looks  at  the 
ground  ahead  of  him,  as  if  absorbed  in  the 
judicial  contemplation  of  some  great 
problem  of  life.  He  is  trying  to  make  up 
his  mind  whether  to  go  to  the  harness  shop 
and  play  "  pitch,"  otherwise  known  as 
"  smear,"  or  proceed  to  the  undertaking 
parlors  and  denounce  Morgan.  At  Hitch- 
cock's corner  he  greets  the  assembled  fel- 
low-workers in  the  realm  of  political 
discussion  with  the  grave  condescension  of 
a  U.  S.  Senator.  He  goes  to  the  cigar 

208 


THE  SLIM 


counter  and  purchases  six  medium  blonde 
perfectos  from  a  box  marked  Old  Glory. 
His  daily  expenses  are  27  cents.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  cigars  he  buys  a  morning 
paper.  During  the  heated  term  he  will 
now  and  then  drink  a  glass  of  a  dark  fluid 
which  is  tolerated  in  temperance  resorts, 
but  which,  nevertheless,  is  said  to  be  a 
subtle  stimulant  and  enlarges  the  intel- 
lectual vision.  If  there  is  any  truth  in  the 
report,  "  Orve  "  ought  to  drink  a  barrel 
of  it. 

From  the  drug  store  he  moves  toward 
the  post-office.  Then  out  into  the  sunlight 
again,  and  he  pauses,  undecided.  An- 
other day,  fraught  with  splendid  possi- 
bilities, lies  before  him.  Except  that  he 
must  assist  two  trains  to  get  in  and  out  of 
town  and  read  one  paper  from  the  Wash- 
ington special  clear  over  to  the  last  rail- 
road time-table,  the  precious  hours  are  to 

209 


be  his  own.  He  may  indulge  in  cheerful 
pastimes  or  engage  in  profitable  debate 
with  other  free-born  Americans  or  he  may 
sit  in  the  office  of  the  Commercial  Hotel 
and  watch  the  school  children  go  by. 

A  stranger  looking  out  of  the  car  win- 
dow at  the  straggling  lonesomeness  of 
Main  Street  and  the  two  rigs  at  the  hitch- 
rack  might  conclude  that  our  town  is  dull. 
To  some,  possibly,  but  not  to  Orville.  He 
is  never  bored  and  never  complains  of 
ennui.  We  keep  him  interested  and  en- 
tertained, and  Jennie  does  the  rest. 

Her  boarding-house  is  one  of  our  prize 
institutions.  A  good  many  drummers 
would  leave  the  Commercial  and  stop  with 
her,  but,  of  course,  she  can  take  care  of 
only  a  few.  With  one  girl  to  help  her, 
she  takes  care  of  six  boarders,  including 
"  Orve,"  and  she  must  do  fairly  well  in  a 

210 


IE  SLIM 


money  way,  because  he  is  always  well 
dressed  and  has  a  row  of  Old  Glory 
perfectos  peeping  from  his  upper  vest- 
pocket. 

Mrs.  Grigsby  has  a  side-line  or  two. 
She  sends  away  for  flowers  when  there  is 
a  wedding  or  a  funeral,  and  gets  a  little 
commission  out  of  that.  Also,  she  will 
take  orders  for  wall-paper.  Her  revenues 
are  not  big,  but  she  is  a  good  manager, 
and  she  is  a  wonderful  provider.  She 
keeps  Orville  fat  and  well-curried,  and  is 
confident  that  some  day  he  will  reveal  to 
the  world  those  superior  qualities  which 
she  has  always  seen  in  him.  Perhaps  she 
finds  her  happiness  in  mothering  an  over- 
grown boy.  If  she  has  any  regrets  over 
the  Wellaby  incident,  she  has  kept  them 
to  herself.  She  knows  that  Orville  is  the 

paragon  of  all  manhood,  even  if  no  one 
211 


else  is  on  to  him.  She  wouldn't  trade  him 
for  any  ordinary  railway  president. 
Jennie  is  either  a  game  loser  or  wonderful 
actress,  but,  anyway,  she  refuses  to  be 
known  as  a  martyr. 


212 


IV 

EXPORTS 

THE  cruel  city  saps  the  rural  communi-  \ 
ties  of  their  youth  and  vigor  and  new 
blood.  That's  right.  Also,  sometimes  the 
city  saps  a  country  town  of  its  principal 
saps,  thereby  making  the  whole  deal  a 
stand-off. 

Checking  over  the  bunch  that  has  moved 
up  to  the  big  boiling  metropolis  within  the 
last  twenty  years,  the  debits  about  equal 
the  credits. 

Of  course,  some  of  those  who  went  lip 
to  the  city  and  succeeded,  and  are  now  rid- 
ing in  taxis,  would  never  have  gone  be- 
yond $60  per  month  if  they  had  lingered 
in  our  midst.  We  wouldn't  have  gained 
much  by  keeping  them.  In  our  town  they 

213 


HE  SLIM 


would  have  continued  to  be  ordinary  six 
and  seven-eighths  types  of  mortal.  They 
needed  the  exhiliarating  influence  of  rush- 
ing traffic  and  the  courage  that  comes 
from  falling  in  with  a  moving  throng. 
Some  persons,  as,  for  instance,  politicians 
and  pickpockets,  always  seem  to  work 
more  effectively  when  there  is  a  large 
crowd  present. 

As  for  the  failures,  probably  they 
would  have  failed  to  a  slower  tempo  and 
with  a  background  less  brilliantly  illumi- 
nated if  they  had  remained  right  here  at 
home.  The  fact  is  that  a  good  many  of 
our  local  products  who  packed  their  tele- 
scopes and  hied  away  to  the  modern  Babel, 
didn't  go  for  the  purpose  of  making  their 
fortunes,  as  commonly  suggested  by  ten- 
cent  magazines,  but  with  the  intention  of 
making  an  analytical  study  of  rath- 
skellers. 

214, 


The  city  is  called  a  bright  light,  toward 
which  the  winged  insects  speed  from  the 
far-away  darknesses,  in  order  to  get  prop- 
erly scorched.  The  metaphor  is  not  bad, 
and  the  figure  may  be  improved  if  we  add 
that  some  of  these  winged  insects  are 
gnats  and  others  are  bats. 

You  know  a  good  many  people  think 
of  the  city  as  a  kind  of  perpetual  street 
carnival  and  State  Fair,  where  one  may; 
go  to  a  different  show  every  night  and 
where  it  is  not  necessary  to  put  on  gum 
shoes  and  a  mask  and  go  up  an  alley  in 
order  to  take  a  drink.  What's  more,  in 
the  city  you  can  hear  all  the  latest  comic 
and  sentimental  songs  as  soon  as  they 
come  out.  Therefore,  let  us  away  to  the 
big  town. 

James  K.  Wellaby  is  vice-president  and 
all-around  head  man  with  the  B.  L.  &  K. 
railway  because  he  went  up  to  the  city  for 

215 


business  and  not  for  pleasure.  We  can't 
get  over  the  Jim  Wellaby  case.  You 
know,  in  every  small  town  where  boys  are 
running  at  large  and  exhibiting  them- 
selves, it  is  a  favorite  diversion  to  pick  out 
this  or  that  boy  and  note  the  budding  evi- 
dences of  greatness  and  map  out  a  destiny 
for  him. 

If  a  boy  plants  all  his  coppers  in  the  tin 
bank  and  rustles  through  back  yards  look- 
ing for  bottles  to  sell  to  the  druggist  and 
skins  the  other  boys  on  trades,  people 
naturally  say :  "  He'll  do  a  nice  mortgage 
and  loan  business  some  day  and  be  ap- 
pointed trustee  of  a  university." 

Ed  Noyes  was  a  Friday  afternoon  de- 
claimer  in  his  youth,  and  thereby  gave 
promise  of  his  future  career  as  an  actor 
with  a  repertoire  show. 

Ferd  Billings  kept  hanging  around  the 
livery  stable,  and  we  might  have  known 

216 


that  he  would  turn  out  to  be  a  horse 
trader. 

Eugene  Ellis  was  pale  and  well-be- 
haved, with  translucent  ears,  so  it  didn't 
take  much  of  a  clairvoyant  to  predict  that 
the  ministry  would  get  him. 

Baz  Finkley  would  flip  all  the  trains 
and  help  unload  the  freight,  and  we  knew 
he  would  be  a  brakeman  unless  something 
enjoined  him.  He  is  now  shy  a  few  fin- 
gers, but  you  can  tell  by  the  coal-dust  on 
his  neck  that  he  is  a  sure-enough  railroad 
man. 

As  a  rule,  the  forecasting  is  fairly  accu- 
rate, but  there  have  been  exceptions.  One 
was  Jim  Wellaby  and  the  other  was  Ches- 
ter Livermore.  The  Committee  on  Public 
Safety  and  Court  of  Last  Resort,  that 
held  down  the  arm-chairs  around  the  Com- 
mercial Hotel,  freely  predicted  a  glorious 

217 


IE  SLIM 


future  for  Chester,  commonly  known  as 
"  Chet." 

When  he  was  four  years  old,  he  called 
his  father  "  Bill "  and  his  mother  "  Liz- 
zie," never  failing  to  score  a  comedy  hit 
with  either  performance.  At  the  age  of 
eight  he  could  play  a  snare  drum  and  talk 
back  to  the  oldest  inhabitant — came  out  in 
long  pants  years  ahead  of  the  other  boys. 
Just  naturally  smart  as  a  whip,  that's  all 
you  could  say  for  him. 

Jim  Frisby  often  said  that  if  "  Chet " 
escaped  Congress  he  would  get  to  be  a  lec- 
turer in  front  of  a  side-show.  He  could 
do  "  anything  that  he  turned  his  hand  to." 
At  twelve  he  wore  a  man's  derby  hat,  and 
could  do  the  "  Spanish  Fandango  "  on 
Steve  Gardner's  guitar  in  a  way  that  made 
all  the  other  youngsters  sit  back  and  hang 
their  heads  and  sigh  with  envy.  Smartest 
boy  that  ever  grew  up  in  our  town — that 

218 


was  the  verdict.  Sharp  as  a  hawk  and 
keener  than  chain  lightning.  Could  letter 
a  sign,  whittle  a  chain  out  of  a  stick  of 
wood,  kill  more  rabbits  and  trap  more 
muskrats— well,  he  simply  was  in  a  class 
by  himself.  The  other  tikes  were  content 
to  follow  his  leadership  and  shine  in  the 
reflected  glory. 

We  knew  that  our  town  could  not  hold 
Chester.  His  ambition  demanded  elbow 
room.  Across  the  waving  fields  of  grain 
came  the  siren  call  of  the  city,  and 
"  Chet "  went  away  from  us  one  day 
twenty  years  ago  in  a  new  suit  of  store 
clothes,  with  a  silk  handkerchief  peeping 
from  the  breast-pocket  and  a  long  cigar 
tucked  in  the  side  of  his  mouth,  which  was 
not  being  used  for  conversation. 

We  expected  to  hear  of  him  as  presi- 
dent of  a  trust  company,  but  instead  we 
learned  that  he  was  taking  tickets  at  a 

219 


nickelodeon,  and  after  that  he  became 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  by-ways 
of  the  metropolis  by  driving  a  night-hack, 
and  once,  when  he  came  home  with  a  tem- 
porary bank  roll  and  a  new  line  of  slang, 
he  told  us  that  he  was  a  "  sheet- writer." 
You  may  know  what  that  means.  It  has 
something  to  do  with  a  race-track.  When 
we  heard  later  on  that  he  was  a  "  tout," 
although  he  called  himself  a  "  betting 
commissioner,"  the  resident  astrologers 
began  to  revise  the  horoscope  and  cut  out 
the  clause  about  Congress. 

Well,  the  race-tracks  have  sprouted 
with  timothy  hay,  and  "  Chet  "  is  assistant 
pastry  cook  at  a  junction  hotel  somewhere 
in  Illinois.  He  can  look  right  out  of  the 
kitchen  window  and  see  Jim  Wellaby  go 
by  in  his  private  car. 

Jim  and  "  Chet  "  grew  up  together,  but 

we  were  so  busy  watching  "  Chet  "  cut  up 
220 


didoes  and  repeating  his  brilliant  observa- 
tions on  men  and  affairs  that  we  didn't 
pay  much  attention  to  Jim.     He  was  a~l 
quiet  boy,  with  steady  gray  eyes  and  a  / 
wide,  steel-trap  kind  of  a  jaw.    His  maniaj 
for  attending  to  his  own  business  made 
him  practically  a  social  outcast.    He  did 
not  trail  in  with  the  Livermore  gang. 
While  the  game  of  "  two-old-cat "  raged 
on  the  common,  he  tinkered  away  in  the 
wood-shed  and  rigged  up  a  telegraph  in- 
strument.   He  went  to  work  in  the  depot 
so  as  to  learn  operating,  and  then  he  got 
to  be  agent,  but  we  never  thought  much  of 
him  as  an  agent. 

An  agent  who  expects  to  be  popular 
and  make  the  depot  a  temple  of  good 
cheer  must  yell  at  the  trainmen  when  they 
slide  by,  and  josh  the  drayman,  and  throw 
in  a  couple  of  jokes  with  every  ticket. 

Jim  simply  attended  to  his  knitting  and 
221 


did  his  work,  and  never  let  any  one  get 
yery  thick  with  him,  and,  honestly,  it  was 
a  relief  to  the  whole  community  when  he 
was  transferred  to  the  general  offices. 

Some  of  the  business  men  had  com- 
plained to  the  company  that  Jim  was  very 
short  in  his  talk  and  bull-headed  in  his 
ideas  of  collecting  bills  right  on  time,  so 
when  he  was  removed  they  took  the  credit 
for  it  and  said  it  would  teach  Jim  a  lesson. 

Just  before  Jim  left,  Jennie  Hinkle  had 
turned  him  down  cold  and  everybody 
knew  it,  so  between  getting  the  mitten  and 
being  transferred,  Jim  left  under  a  kind 
of  a  cloud. 

We  didn't  know  at  the  time  that  the 
company  ordered  him  up  to  the  city  be- 
cause it  was  looking  for  men  who  were 
short  on  humorous  conversation  and  long 
|  pn  systematic  methods.  We  know  it  now, 

because  Jim  has  been  going  like  a  scared 
222 


* 


antelope  ever  since  he  escaped  from  us 
and  got  out  into  the  fair  running. 

You  heard  about  his  coming  through 
on  the  private  car?  He  hadn't  been  back 
to  the  town  from  the  day  he  took  the  noon 
train,  with  his  sister,  and  nobody  else,  to 
tell  him  good-bye.  Talk  about  retribu- 
tion with  a  large  R!  Talk  about  the 
whirligig  of  Fate  here  in  the  land  of  op- 
portunity! Some  of  the  very  business 
men  who  had  demanded  his  discharge,  be- 
cause he  was  not  sufficiently  "  genial " 
and  "  accommodating  "  were  down  at  the 
station  in  their  Sunday  suits  to  give  him 
an  address  of  welcome  and  tell  how  grati- 
fied they  were  that  he  had  disappointed 
them  so  keenly. 

And  say,  when  Jim  walked  out  on  that 
observation  platform  and  turned  those 
cold,  metallic  eyes  on  the  flustered  "  re- 
ception committee,''  with  just  a  wrinkle 

223 


mr«T  i\f 
SUM 


of  a  smile  at  each  side  of  that  steel-trap 
jaw,  and  said  in  his  most  official  tone, 
"  Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  " — I  wish  a 
good  mind-reader  could  have  been  right 
there  to  let  us  know  what  Jim  really 
thinks  of  our  town. 

Some  people  say  he  is  going  to  build  an 
opera  house  here  and  call  it  "  The  Well- 
aby."  Also,  a  new  hotel,  to  be  called 
"  The  Wellaby."  We  certainly  need  the 
hotel;  and  several  of  ras  can  tell  him 
where  to  get  an  assistant  pastry  cook, 
who  is  a  good  man  when  he  is  not 
drinking. 


224 


THE    MISSIONARY 

xX 

THE  small  town  has  perked  up  a  plenty  - 

in  the  last  ten  years.  You  can't  sell  us 
paper  collars  any  more — no,  not  even  cel- 
luloid. The  already-made  tie  with  the 
dingus  for  holding  it  under  the  collar  and 
the  little  elastic  loop  for  lashing  it  firmly 
to  the  bone  collar-button,  is  now  a  pre- 
historic relic  found  only  in  neglected 
bureau  drawers. 

No  more  hand-me-downs.  We  have  to 
be  measured  and  we  pick  out  suits  simi- 
lar to  those  worn  by  the  hatchet-faced 
aristocrats  on  the  back  page  of  the  uplift 
weekly. 

Progressive  euchre  is  almost  as  anti- 
quated as  casino  or  muggins.  Bridge- 

225 


IE  SLIM 


whist  is  now  played  in  our  very  best  par- 
lors, and  on  gala  nights  the  local  Belmonts 
and  Astors  show  their  shoulder-blades  and 
shirt-fronts  in  a  manner  almost  metropoli- 
tan. At  present  we  are  all  agog  over  a 
brand-new  game  called  "  Rum."  It 
sounds  wicked,  but  it  is  really  one  of  the 
politest  cut-throat  games  ever  pulled  off 
in  a  parlor.  Never  heard  of  it?  Well, 
get  busy.  It  is  the  latest  wrinkle,  and  we 
grabbed  it  before  it  got  cold. 

We  have  a  new  delicatessan  store,  with 
liver  sausage  and  at  least  three  kinds  of 
cheese  temptingly  shown  in  the  window, 
and  some  of  us  who  have  traveled  exten- 
sively know  how  to  pronounce  "  Camem- 
bert." 

Miss  Winter  has  a  trimmer  come  out 
from  the  city  to  design  toques  and  tur- 
bans for  our  home-grown  buds.  Any 
bright  day  you  can  see  some  wonderful 

226 


upside-down,  sugar-bowl  effects,  moving 
swiftly  about  our  streets  with  attractive 
young  women  trying  to  hide  under  them. 

Before  you  read  these  lines  the  hobble 
will  be  a  has-been.  It  has  got  around  to 
the  dining-room  Tessies  at  the  Commer- 
cial Hotel,  which  means  that  the  death- 
knell  has  sounded  on  upper  Fifth  Street. 

We  get  all  the  new  films  at  the  Arcade 
Theater,  and  our  illustrated  songs  have 
colored  slides  showing  a  theatrical-looking 
Harvard  man  mussing  up  a  glorious 
blonde  under  a  red  tree  in  the  pink  moon- 
light, just  the  same  as  you  see  it  on  Broad-  . 
way. 

We  would  imagine  ourselves  right  up 
at  the  head  of  the  parade  and  almost  step- 
ping on  the  heels  of  the  snare-drummer, 
if  it  were  not  for  Flukie  Trimble.  Flukie 
is  one  of  the  many  that  we  have  sent  up 
to  the  great  city.  He  is  a  grandson  of 

227 


Uncle  Tim  Trimble,  the  one  who  fought 
the  battle  of  Antietam  single-handed,  as 
nearly  as  we  can  gather  from  his  own  ac- 
count of  the  slaughter. 

Flukie  works  in  a  bucket-shop  in  Chi- 
cago.   No  one  around  here  seems  to  know 
just  what  a  bucket-shop  is.    The  name  is 
^isleading.     A  bucket-shop  has  nothing 
/  to  do  with  tinware.    It  is  a  place  where 
imaginary  farm  products  are  sold  to  ex- 
\  perts  who  wouldn't  know  the  difference 
\between  a  corn  stalk  and  a  Canada  thistle. 
Flukie  marks  on  a  blackboard  the  latest 
market  quotations  on  grain  for  May,  Sep- 
tember, December  and  so   on  into  the 
glimmering  future.    A  lot  of  gentlemen 
wearing  spring  overcoats  in  the  winter- 
time sit  in  arm-chairs  facing  the  black- 
board.   Each  of  them  has  a  stub  of  a  lead- 
pencil  with  which  he  computes  rapidly, 
on  the  back  of  an  old  envelope,  how  much 

228 


IE  SLIM 


he  could  make  by  selling  short  1,000,000 
bushels  of  September  wheat.  The  only 
thing  that  blocks  the  deal  is  the  fact  that 
he  went  broke  three  years  before. 

But  to  hear  Flukie  tell  it,  you  would 
think  that  he  got  Jim  Patten  on  the 
'phone  every  morning  and  told  him  how 
to  string  his  bets,  and  then  had  a  quiet 
confab  with  the  Armour  crowd  just  before 
going  out  to  lunch  with  Mr.  Cudahy. 

He  does  not  come  back  to  his  humble 
birthplace  because  he  has  an  appetite  for 
our  society.  He  comes  to  blind  us  with 
the  splendor  of  his  apparel  and  engulf  us 
beneath  the  Johnstown  of  his  newly  ac- 
quired vocabulary. 

For  one  thing  he  has  the  monogram 
habit.  It  has  got  him  worse  than  cocaine 
ever  got  anybody.  On  the  handkerchief, 
on  the  sleeve  of  the  shirt,  on  the  ankle  of 
the  sock,  engraved  on  the  watchfob,  and 

229 


neatly  twisted  into  a  stickpin.  Some  day, 
when  he  is  wanted  by  the  police,  he  will 
have  an  awful  time  trying  to  get  rid  of  his 
placards. 

He  was  here  last  week.  He  simply 
blew  in  to  take  a  peek  at  the  old  dump 
and  see  how  the  boobs  were  making  it 
out  in  the  dear  old  bean-patch.  That  was 
the  language  he  employed  when  speaking 
of  an  enlightened  community  that  toler- 
ated him  for  twenty  years  and  gave  him 
the  rudiments  of  an  education  so  that  he 
would  know  enough  to  mark  up  figures 
on  the  blackboard. 

"  Of  all  the  tanks  ever  dug  up  by  Rand- 
McNally,  this  is  certainly  the  prize 
whisTn  post,"  he  said,  backing  up  against 
the  cigar  case  and  gazing  in  pity  at  the 
awe-stricken  circle  of  natives.  "  What  do 
you  rummies  do  out  here  to  kill  time?  I'd 
rather  be  a  waste-paper  box  in  old  Chi 

230 


than  a  big  squash  out  here.  This  town 
curls  up  and  dies  at  nine  o'clock  every 
night.  That's  right!  They  blanket  the 
chickens,  take  in  the  sidewalk,  set  the 
alarm  for  5  G.M.,  and  then  tear  for  the 
feathers.  In  this  town  they  work  that 
curfew  gag  on  the  old  folks  same  as  on  the 
kids.  Notformuh!  Not  for  little  Elmer 
McGinnis!  They  can't  put  me  into  the 
hay  at  sundown.  I  want  to  stay  up  and 
watch  the  light  burn.  I'm  the  gazabe  that 
helps  close  the  rats-keller;  Willie,  the 
night-hawk!" 

Some  one  ventured  to  suggest  that 
probably  Flukie,  in  moving  about  Chi- 
cago, hit  a  "  purty  smart  clip !  " 

Flukie  pleaded  guilty  as  follows: 
"  Barney  Oldfield  can't  hang  nothin'  on 
me.  You  have  got  to  have  split  seconds 
to  ketch  my  time.  I  go  the  first  mile 
in  nothin'-flat.  I  go  so  fast  that  my  ~1 

231 


TE  SLIM 


shadow's  about  half  a  block  behind  me. 
I  telephone  I'm  comin',  and  then  I'm 
^there  before  they  get  the  telephone.  And, 
believe  me,  any  time  you  want  to  get  out 
and  aviate,  that  Chicago  is  some  town. 
Any  time  you  want  to  burn  a  roll  of  cur- 
rency you  can  always  find  somebody  to 
strike  a  match.  It's  a  grand  little  town 
if  you're  in  right.  If  you  know  the  real 
Indians — so  you  can  give  'em  the  high 
sign — you  can  go  as  far  as  you  like.  But 
if  you're  flyin'  single,  and  your  motor 
stops,  take  it  from  me,  kid,  you'd  better 
glide  gently  back  to  mother  earth  and  tear 
for  your  private  garage." 

Part  of  the  time  we  don't  know  just 
what  Flukie  is  talking  about,  but  we 
take  a  kind  of  groping  and  bewildered 
pleasure  in  listening  to  his  Arabian  Night 
stories  of  wicked  gaiety  in  the  big  town. 
From  what  he  tells  us,  it  appears  that  a 

232 


great  many  prominent  society  women 
there  are  pursuing  him  and  writing  notes 
to  him. 

"  I  see  this  party  first  on  the  L  train  " 
— that's  the  way  he  begins.  "  She  was 
planted  on  the  other  side  of  the  car,  and 
say! — she'd  robbed  many  a  show  window 
to  get  that  wardrobe.  She  was  there  with 
the  jinglin'  harness,  believe  me!  I  kind 
o'  give  her  the  eye  an'  she  got  me  an' 
come  back  with  one  o'  them  Jimmy 
Archer  signals,  so  that  nobody  else  was 
wise.  I  moved  over  and  opened  up  a 
small  one-pound  box  of  South  Side  con- 
versation, and  the  next  thing  you  know 
our  hero  is  walkin'  up  street  with  said 
queen  and  has  address  written  on  cuff.  I 
had  to  go  around  and  scratch  on  the  door 
a  few  times  before  I  teased  her  out,  but 
say,  I  took  her  down  to  see  a  vawdvill 
one  night  an'  when  she  moved  down  into 

233 


TE  SLIM  Kl 


Section  A  wearin'  them  $2,000  worth  of 
clothes,  everybody  stopped  lookin'  at  the 
show  and  said,  '  Hooray!  Mrs.  Palmer 
is  back  from  Europe ! '  Don't  overlook 
the  fact  that  I  was  carryin'  special  scenery 
myself.  I  was  Gussied  up  in  the  real 
Tuxede  with  the  satin  blazizums  all  over 
the  front  and  the  gazump  and  the  little 
concertina  hat.  After  the  show,  a  couple 
o'  them  hot  sparrows  an'  a  pint  o'  that 
high-tariff  water,  with  the  band  tearin'  off 
the  '  Grizzly  Bear.5  It's  the  life,  boys! 
Nothin'  to  it— it's  the  life!  " 

He  is  equally  frank  and  outspoken  re- 
garding his  business  prospects. 

"  I'm  just  pikin'  along  now,"  he  will 
say.  "  I  cop  out  a  thousand  now  and  then 
— enough  to  keep  me  in  cigarette  papers. 
I  am  just  layin'  back,  that's  all.  I'm  hep 
to  every  play  that's  made,  an'  some  bright 
mornin'  I'll  jump  in  an'  give  that  grain 


234 


market  a  wallop  that'll  keep  it  dizzy  for 
many  a  long  day.  I've  got  a  lot  o'  money 
guys  on  my  staff.  When  it  comes  time  to 
pull  off  the  big  show  I'll  be  right  there 
with  the  cush.  I'll  have  all  the  kale  in 
the  world  right  at  my  elbow.  Me  with 
all  the  mazume  Lean  handle  with  a  scoop- 
shovel.  An'  when  I  do  put  one  of  them 
things  across  it'll  be  a  case  of  *  Good- 
night, Miss  Mitchell.'  I'll  get  one  o'  them 
red  tourin'  cars  as  long  as  from  here  to 
there  and  I'll  show  Europe  how  to  act 
when  the  real  fellow  comes  along.  I've 
got  this  market  doped  so  it  can't  get  away 
from  me.  It's  a  stinch !  I'll  have  Ogden 
Armour  workin'  for  me  in  less  than  two 
years.  When  people  walk  by  the  Board 
of  Trade,  they'll  say,  '  That's  his  office- 
right  over  there ! ' 

Some  of  our  simple  villagers  maintain 
that  Flukie  is  not  the  eminent  Lotherio 

235 


TESLi 


that  he  claims  to  be,  and  that,  as  a  young 
Napoleon  of  finance,  he  will  continue  to 
pull  down  $12  per  week  as  a  crayon  art- 
ist. Others  believe  the  story  about  the 
red  touring  car.  If  he  gets  it,  we  can 
assure  him  a  large  and  enthusiastic  fu- 
neral back  in  his  beloved  birthplace. 


236 


VI 

THE    SQUIRE  ^ 

OUR  esteemed  President  had  com- 
plained lately  about  the  law's  delay. 
That  is  because  the  President  does  not 
know  Squire  Hibben.  When  the  ma- 
chinery of  justice  begins  to  grind,  with 
the  Squire's  hand  on  the  throttle  and  his 
one  sound  eye  fixed  on  the  straight  and 
narrow  path  of  duty,  look  out  for  results. 

Somebody  is  going  to  be  nicked,  or 
trimmed,  or  stood  up,  or  shaken  down  for 
$2.00  and  costs,  the  total  often  amounting 
to  as  much  as  $14.75. 

This  talk  about  the  guilty  escaping 
does  not  apply  to  our  town.  Nobody  es- 
capes. It  is  almost  as  dangerous  to  be 
innocent  as  it  is  to  be  guilty. 

237 


imsa 


Any  man  arrested  and  jerked  before 
Squire  Hibben  had  better  begin  counting 
out  his  money. 

The  Squire  has  a  small  cubical  office 
just  back  of  the  post-office.  On  the  wall 
is  a  map  of  the  state.  On  the  table  is  a 
copy  of  the  Revised  Statutes.  On  the 
floor  is  a  box  filled  with  sawdust. 

Would  you  like  to  see  the  law  being 
applied  without  fear  or  favor?  Then  fol- 
low along. 

Homer  Finkley  has  a  dog.  It  is  a  con- 
ventional small  town  dog — part  setter, 
part  pointer,  and  the  remainder  of  the 
escutcheon  somewhat  blurred.  It  is  the 
kind  of  dog  that  never  suspected  having 
an  ancestry,  and  if  it  did,  it  would  try  to 
hush  the  matter  up. 

Tom  Jimmison  walks  out  of  his  back 
door  after  a  hot  breakfast  to  inspect  the 
dwindling  supply  of  anthracite  and  finds 

238 


the  Finkley  dog,  christened  Hero  for  no 
particular  reason,  snuffing  and  smelling 
around  his  wood-shed.  He  is  annoyed 
by  this  brazen  act  of  trespass  and  hurls  a 
piece  of  coal  at  Hero,  and,  strangely 
enough,  hits  the  target. 

Hero  establishes  a  new  speed  record 
up  the  alley,  running  close  to  the  ground 
and  emitting  staccato  yelps  expressive  of 
physical  agony — nervous  shock  and  acute 
private  humiliation. 

Homer  Finkley  is  standing  at  the  end 
of  the  alley,  and  wants  to  know  what  ails 
Hero. 

Then  the  Thornton  boy,  in  a  desire  to 
promote  warfare,  says  that  Tom  Jimmi- 
son  lammed  him  with  a  piece  of  coal  "  so 
big,"  indicating  something  larger  than  a 
cocoanut  and  not  quite  as  big  as  a  foot- 
ball. 

Homer  Finkley's  emotional  nature  im- 

239 


mediately  goes  to  the  boiling  point.  He 
knows  that  he  (Homer)  and  the  other 
members  of  the  Finkley  family  are  the 
only  persons  who  have  a  right  to  do  things 
to  Hero. 

He  walks  around  on  Third  Street  and 
meets  Tom  Jimmison,  who  is  on  his  way 
to  the  elevator  where  he  is  employed  to 
weigh  the  loads  and  explain  to  the  farm- 
ers why  the  price  of  grain  has  gone  to  the 
bow-wows. 

Mr.  Finkley  opens  up. 

"Look  here!  What  was  your  object 
in  tryin'  to  kill  my  dog?  " 

"  Well !  What  business  did  he  have 
snoopin'  around  my  back  yard?  " 

"  That  dog  never  harmed  nothin'  or 
nobody !  My  little  girl  plays  with  him  by 
the  hour.  That  dog  has  more  sense  than 
a  lot  of  people  I  know." 

"  Got  no  business  over  in  my  yard." 

240 


"  Tom  Jimmison,  if  I  ever  hear  of  you 
harmin'  hide  or  hair  of  that  dog  agin,  111 
make  your  heels  hit  the  back  of  your  neck ! 
Ill  lay  you  across  my  knee  and  spank 
you!  Anybody  that'll  pick  on  to  a  dog 
is  a  cheap,  ornery,  low-down,  dol-derned 
pin-head  o'  misery !  " 

Think  of  being  called  a  "  pin-head  of 
misery!" 

Homer  Finkley  is  a  big,  rough  Clydes- 
dale, with  an  eighteen  neck  and  corru- 
gated hands.  Tom  Jimmison  is  a  ninety- 
pound  imitation  of  what  his  parents  hoped 
would  grow  up  to  be  a  human  being. 

When  you  look  at  him  you  get  merely 
the  disappointing  impression  of  a  pair  of 
spectacles  and  an  Adam's  apple. 

Any  personal  encounter  between  the 
two  would  conform  to  the  general  outline 
of  a  battle  between  a  colored  chef  and  a 
spring  chicken.  But,  of  course,  Tom  has 

241 


to  go  through  the  motions  of  sustaining 
his  end  of  the  argument,  especially  as  the 
Thornton  boy  is  standing  by,  eagerly  ab- 
sorbing the  details  so  that  he  can  tell  his 
mother  all  about  it  and  thereby  get  the 
facts  into  general  circulation. 

So  Tom  wags  his  head  and  says, 
"  Homer  Finkley,  you'd  better  be  a  little 
careful  how  you  talk  to  me,"  and  then 
walks  rapidly  away  before  losing  his  tem- 
porary advantage. 

As  he  passes  down  the  street  he  is  still 
stunned  and  bewildered  by  the  sudden- 
ness and  the  ferocity  of  the  attack  on  him, 
and  then,  as  he  recalls,  over  and  over,  the 
highly  insulting  language  used  by  the 
domineering  ruffian,  a  white-hot  wrath 
and  an  aching  desire  to  be  revenged  begin 
to  curl  and  writhe  in  his  system. 

What  does  he  do?  He  pegs  down  the 
street,  breathing  heavily  through  his  nose 

242 


TIE  SUM 


and  slams  into  the  law  office  of  Buskirk 
&  Hooper.  Ed  Buskirk  is  busily  en- 
gaged, whittling  a  chain  out  of  a  solid 
piece  of  wood,  but  he  comes  out  from 
underneath  the  shavings  and  listens  to  the 
story  of  the  outrage. 

"  I'd  a'  been  justified  in  liittin'  him," 
explains  Tom,  "  but  I'm  a  man  of  peace. 
I  hold  myself  in.  But  I  think  it's  my 
duty  to  have  the  law  on  him.  He's  been 
goin'  around  this  town  abusin'  and  bully- 
raggin'  people  just  long  enough." 

Tom's  eagerness  to  secure  a  private 
vengeance,  in  the  name  of  the  general 
weal,  seems  to  impress  Lawyer  Buskirk, 
who  compliments  him  upon  his  exhibi- 
tion of  unselfishness  and  says  something 
about  pro  bono  publico. 

"  Did  he  draw  any  weepin? "  asked 
Lawyer  Buskirk,  with  an  open  law-book 
balanced  on  his  knee. 

243 


"  No,  and  it's  a  blamed  good  thing  for 
him  he  didn't ! "  exclaims  Tom,  the  infer- 
ence being  that  if  Mr.  Finkley  had  drawn 
a  deadly  weapon,  Mr.  Jimmison  would 
have  taken  it  away  from  him  and  then 
broken  both  of  his  arms  and  both  of  his 
legs  by  mere  brute  strength. 

'  We  can  get  after  him  for  provoke," 
suggests  the  lawyer.  "  We  might  sue 
him  for  slander  later  on.  Anyway,  we 
can  bind  him  over  to  keep  the  peace." 

Squire  Hibben  is  just  moving  up  into 
the  king  row  when  Plaintiff  Jimmison  and 
Attorney  Buskirk  enter  the  Temple  of 
Justice,  each  looking  like  an  ambassador 
with  a  declaration  of  war  in  his  inside 
pocket. 

The  checker  game  is  forgotten.  The 
still  pen  begins  to  scratch  upon  the  dusty 
page.  A  messenger  goes  hot-foot  in 

244 


search  of  Uncle  Jim  Trimble,  the  con- 
stable. 

Now  let  the  tocsin  sound  while  the  pale- 
faced  women  hurry  from  house  to  house, 
carrying  the  dread  message.  The  swift, 
inexorable,  merciless  Law  of  the  Land  is 
about  to  overtake  Homer  Finkley! 

See  the  solemn  men  moving  toward  the 
tribunal,  so  as  to  be  right  there  when  the 
jury  is  made  up. 

Homer  Finkley  is  backed  up  to  the 
stove  in  the  Commercial  Hotel,  telling 
just  what  happened  from  start  to  finish 
(and  to  hear  him  tell  it,  you  might  sup- 
pose that  the  argument  lasted  not  less 
than  three-quarters  of  an  hour),  when 
Uncle  Jim  Trimble  comes  in  from  Main 
Street  and  approaches  him  with  no  more 
sense  of  importance  than  Grant  had  when 
he  faced  Lee  at  Appomattox. 

Mr.  Finkley  turns  a  little  pale  when  he 

245 


hears  the  words,  "  against  the  peace  and 
dignity  of  the  people  of  the  state,"  but 
he  recovers  himself,  and,  after  a  brief 
period  of  meditation,  speaks  as  follows: 
'  I  must  see  my  lawyer." 

Certain  corporation  officers  did  the 
same  when  their  company  was  fined  $29,- 
000,000,  but  they  never  looked  as  serious 
about  it  as  Mr.  Finkley  did  as  he  went 
over  to  pull  Mordecai  Weaver  out  of  a 
\  pin-pool  game  and  unload  upon  him  the 
\  crushing  responsibility  of  the  "  case." 

The  small  cubical  building  back  of  the 
post-office  is  trying  to  repeat  the  perform- 
ance of  the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  with 
tobacco  smoke  added. 

Squire  Hibben,  looking  like  eight  dig- 
nitaries of  the  Hague  tribunal  condensed 
into  one,  sits  behind  the  Revised  Statutes 
and  looks  about  him  with  a  glazed  and  im- 
partial eye. 

246 


Twelve  jurors,  each  trying  to  sit  on  his 
shoulder-blades,  listens  while  Tom  Jimmi- 
son  tells  of  murderous  threats  and  homi- 
cidal gestures. 

Then  Homer  Finkley  goes  on  the  stand 
and  tells  how  he  met  Mr.  Jimmison, 
whom  he  has  known  for  years,  and  spoke 
pleasantly  to  him.  In  the  course  of  their 
conversation  he  referred  to  the  incident 
of  the  dog,  yet  never  did  he  overlook  the 
luminous  fact  that  he  (Mr.  Finkley)  was 
a  "  gentleman." 

Mr.  Buskirk  addresses  the  jury.  He 
begins  with  the  firing  of  the  first  gun  at 
Lexington  and  works  up  to  the  heinous 
attack  on  the  character  of  his  snow-white 
client,  and,  although  he  doesn't  say  so,  he 
seems  to  favor  the  death  penalty. 

Mr.  Weaver  follows,  and,  without  com- 
ing down  to  precise  details,  suggests  that 
Mr.  Jimmison  has  at  some  time  or  other 

247 


poisoned  a  well,  stolen  the  tombstone  from 
his  mother's  grave  and  pawned  it  for  drink 
money,  to  say  nothing  of  striking  a  crip- 
pled child  in  the  head  with  a  dull  axe. 

After  the  arguments,  Chief  Justice 
Hibben  instructs  the  jury.  He  says  it's 
a  serious  charge.  The  jury  is  to  be  gov- 
erned by  the  law  and  the  evidence.  He 
doesn't  say  that  the  defendant  will  have 
to  pay  jury  fees  if  found  guilty,  because 
the  twelve  good  men  and  true  have  been 
sitting  there  for  an  hour  figuring  on  what 
they  would  do  with  the  money. 

Mr.  Finkley  is  guilty.  Everyone  in 
town,  except  Mr.  Finkley,  has  known 
that  since  early  morning.  He  is  bound 
over  to  keep  the  peace.  He  pays  for  a 
bond.  He  pays  a  fine.  He  pays  his  law- 
\  yer.  He  pays  the  Court.  He  pays  the 
Constable.  He  pays  the  jury. 

248 


IE  SUM 


Getting  out  of  a  justice  court  is  like 
getting  out  of  a  New  York  hotel. 

That  same  afternoon,  see  Uncle  Jim 
Trimble  going  down  to  the  grain  elevator 
with  a  folded  paper  in  his  hand. 

He  is  on  his  way  to  arrest  Mr.  Thomas 
Jimmison.  The  plaintiff  is  Mr.  Homer 
Finkley,  who  charges  that  Mr.  Jimmison, 
by  attacking  his  dog,  indirectly  provoked 
an  assault. 

Is  Mr.  Jimmison  guilty? 

He  is. 


249 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN  INITIAL  FINE  OF  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


APR    2     1936 

"" 

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r      •                    ->  -•  - 

>^v   i 

\\S*S*V° 

ioiWS8PT 

RECTD  LD 

NOV  19  1956 

VUi1'57W« 

^1—  ,  - 

"EC  D  LD 

JUL2    1957 

LD  21-100m-7,'33 

YB  72893 


